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WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 





AYHISDORY VOR 


MONETARY SYSTEMS 


IN THE VARIOUS STATES OF THE WORLD, 


B. C, 369 TO A. D. 1895. 


AS DRAWN FROM THEIR LAWS, TREATIES, MINT 
CODES, COINS, ARCH ZOLOGICAL REMAINS 
AND OTHER AUTHENTIC SOURCES. 


SHOCOND EDITION: REVISED BY THE AUTHOR 


HE latest information and most accurate details relating to the Monetary 
Systems and History of the Various States, their coins and coinages, paper 
systems, monetary expedients and experiments, the Coinage Prerogative, 
principles effecting money, the demonetization of silver, etc., will be found in 


DEL MAR’S ‘‘“MONETARY SYSTEMS.” 
The following list of Chapters affords some view of the scope of the work: 


Preface. Bibliography. X. Later Plantagenet Moneys, A. D. 
isthome, Bi-C..369 ta Av LD. r204. 1296—1360. 
Ul. The sacred Character of Gold, B. XI, The Coinage Prerogative. 
C. 1200 to date. XII. Saxony and Scandinavia. 5th 
III. Pounds, Shillings and Pence, B.C. cent. to date. 
500 to date. XIII. The Netherlands. toth cent. to 
IV. Gothic Moneys, B. C. 55—A. D. date. 
1066. XIV. Germany. 13thcent. to date. 
V. Moslem Moneys, A. D. 622—1492. XV. Private Coinage. 
VI. Early English Moneys. A. D. 622} XVI. Statistics of the Ratio. 
—1492. XVII. Bank Suspensions since the era 
VII. Moneys of the Heptarchy, A. D. 600 of Private Coinage, A. D. 1666 
—II00, —1895. 
VIII. Anglo-Norman Moneys, A. D. 1066} XVIII. The ‘ilver Demonetization of 
—I153. 1865-73 and Existing Monetary 
IX. Early Plantagenet Moneys, A. D. Systems. 


II54—1205. 


Cloth, 8vo., Library style, Complete Index, 444 pages, $2.00—prepaid. 
LES SVSTEMES MONETAIRES. 


This is a translation of the author’s ‘‘ History of Monetary Systems’’ into the 
French language, made by M. ALBERT CHABRY, Membre de la Ligue Bimétallique 
Anglaise et de la Ligue Anglaise pour la Défence de 1’Or, et par M. C. BESSONNET- 
FAVRE, pudliciste, Paris, 4to., 1899. $2.00 prepaid. 


DEL MARS SCIENCE OF MONEY. 


Third Edition. 


Cloth, 8vo., Library Style, Thick Tinted Paper, Complete Index, $1.00 Prepaid. 


PERO ORLD S: HALOCVONIAGE: or THE BENEFICEN 7; 
ELPRFECTS OF AMPLE MONEY. 


Eighth Edition. 


Pamphlet, Octavo, New York, 1899, 10 Cents, Prepaid. 
BARBARA VILLIERS; or A HISTORY OF MONETARY 


CRIMES. 


Including the Crimes of B. C. 200, and of A. D. 1666, 1742, 1870 and 1873. 
Cloth, 8vo., Library Style, Complete Index, 75 Cents, Prepaid. Same in Paper, 50 Cts. 
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3ARBARA VILLIERS. 


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BARBARA VILLIERS: | 


OR 


A HISTORY OF MONETARY CRIMES. 


BY 
ALEXANDER DEL MAR, M. E. 


FORMERLY DIRECTOR OF THE BUREAU OF STATISTICS OF THE UNITED STATES 
OF AMERICA; MINING COMMISSIONER TO THE UNITED STATES MONE- 
TARY COMMISSION OF 1876; AUTHOR OF A ‘‘ HISTORY OF 


THE PRECIOUS METALS,” ‘‘A HISTORY OF MONE- 
TARY SYSTEMS,” ‘‘THE SCIENCE OF MONEY,” 
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INTRODUCTION. 


THE insidious crime of secretly or surreptitiously altering the 
monetary laws of a State—than which no more dastardly or fatal 
blow can be dealt at its liberties—is not a new one. ‘There is 
a suggestion in the decree of B. C. 360, concerning the ancient 
iron money of Sparta, that Gylipus was not unfamiliar with 
this grave offence. In a later age, Pliny, who justly calls 
it ‘‘a crime against mankind,” evidently refers to that alter- 
ation of the Roman mint code by which what remained of the 
nummulary system of the Republic was subverted, about B. C. 200, 
in favor of the authorised private coinages of the gentes. Such alter- 
ation seems to have been secret, for no explicit allusion to it appears. 
in the fragments that have been preserved concerning the legislation 
of that period. But the coinages and the decadence of the State 
tell the story with sufficient distinctness to justify the anathema of 
the Roman encyclopedist. | 

Upon the establishment of the Empire, the State resumed the 
entire control of its monetary issues; and this policy it continued to 
maintain until the barbarian revolts of the fifth and sixth centuries 
subverted or weakened its authority and obliged it to connive at 
breaches of the prerogative which it had lost the power to prevent 
or punish. ‘The latest notable exercise of its resentment for an 
usurpation of the coinage prerogative was the war which Justinian II. 
declared against Abd-el-Melik for daring to strike and issue gold 
coins without the Imperial stamp or authority. 

After the Fall of Constantinople in 1204, the prerogative of the 
Roman Emperor fell into the hands of the numerous potentates who 
erected their crowns upon the ruins of the empire and its maintenance 
became the source of numerous contests with the inferior nobles, who, 
in their ignorance and avidity, would fain have retained a right. 
which, so long as it remained in their hands, rendered the erection 
of kingdoms and therefore the recognition and due support of their 
own nobility, impossible. The process of King Philip le Bel against 
the Comte de Nevers emphasised this view of the subject very 
clearly. Before the Discovery of America private coinage was 
everywhere suppressed; and the essential prerogative of Money be- 


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INTRODUCTION, 


came vested and centered in the various crowned heads who 
governed the states of Europe, 

It was not long after that great event, when avidity awoke to new 
life over the spoils of a plundered Continent, that attempts were re- 
newed to snatch the prerogative of Money from the State. This 
time it was not the truculent noble, who impudently claimed a right 
that had once belonged to the Cesars and boldly exercised it in defi- 
ance of the Crown, but the sneaking billoneur, who stealthily sought 
to acquire it through the arts of falsehood, intrigue, and forgery. 

Such were the crimes of 1666, 1742, 1870 and 1873. 


BARBARA VILLIERS 


OR A HISTORY OF 


MONETARY CRIMES. 


CET ALTE se L 
THE CRIME OF 1666, 


ROM the remotest time to the seventeenth century, of our era, | 
fk the right to coin money and to regulate its value (by giving it de- 
nominations) and by limiting or increasing the quantity of it in 
circulation, was the exclusive prerogative of the State. In 1604, in 
the celebrated case of the Mixed Moneys,’ this prerogative was 
affirmed under such extraordinary circumstances and with such an 
overwhelming array of judicial and forensic authority as to occasion 
alarm to the moneyed classes of England, who at once sought the 
means to overthrow it. These they found in the demands of the 
East India Company, the corruption of Parliament the profligacy of 
Charles II., and the influence of Barbara Villiers. The result was 
the surreptitious mint legislation of 1666-7: and thus a prerogative, 
which, next to the right of peace or war, is the most powerful in- 
strument by which a State can influence the happiness of its subjects, 
was surrendered or sold for a song to aclass of usurers, in whose 
hands it has remained ever since. In framing the American mint- 
laws of 1790-2, Mr. Hamilton, a young man (then 33 years of age), 
and wholly unaware of the character or bearings of this English 
legislation, innocently copied it and caused it to be incorporated in 
the laws of the United States, where it still remains, an obstacle to 
the equitable distribution of wealth and a menace to public pros- 
perity. 

More than this: down to the year 1870 the Crown of England had 
the right, without consulting Parliament, to undo much of the mis- 


1 A copious Digest of the ‘” Mixed Moneys” case appears in the author’s ‘* Science 
of Money,” chap, VII. 


8 BARBARA VILLIERS. 


chief occasioned by the Act of 1666 and its logical sequel, the Act 
of 1816: that is to say, the Crown had the right and the power to 
restore the previous Monetary System of full legal tender gold and 
silver coins struck by the State for the convenience of the public 
and the benefit of trade; and not as now, merely upon the behest of 
the banking fraternity. In that year this supernal power was sur- 
reptitiously filched from the prerogatives of the Crown. The evil 
work was then carried to other countries especially to the United 
States of America, where in 1873 it was copied with a faithfulness 
to its model that could only have been born of design. 





Upon the opening of trade with India in the 16th century a pound 
of gold metal could be exchanged or purchased in Asia for 6 to 8 
pounds of silver metal, this being the ratio paid for bullion at the 
Indian mints,, There was little or no silver in India; the natives of 
that country being ignorant of how to reduce argentiforous ores. 
Gold was comparatively plentiful, though it existed chiefly in the 
form of jewelry and other works of art. The currency consisted 
mainly of copper and billon coins, with a comparatively few gold 
pieces, the latter being chiefly used in and about the courts of the 
reigning sovereigns and the great commercial cities. Owing to 
these circumstances, the exchange of Western silver for Eastern 
gold became one of the chief sources of profit to Europeans engaged 
in the Oriental trade. In 1542 the Spaniards commenced shipping 
silver to China and India, from Acapulco in Mexico, by way of the 
Phillpines. When Potosi became prolific these shipments amounted 
to £200,000 ayear. By this time the value of a pound weight of 
gold in the coinages of India had been raised to 9 pounds weight of 
silver; in other words, the coinage ratio between silver and gold was 
9 for1. The British East India Company, formed in 1600, at once 
sought permission from the Crown of England to export silver to 
India. ‘The policy of England had always been opposed to the 
melting or exportation of any portion of its Measure of Value. Penal 
statutes, prohibiting such melting or exportation, had been enacted 
injopRawidihhicres2 Hen yd Vicar he Rech bey merger hte 
2 Hen Vi cos 17 Edward DV: 4 Hén? Vito cie2endiro sen, 
METS Chas: 

Similar statutes were enacted by Henry II. and Henry V. Such 
prohibition was still in force. It embraced not only the coins of the 
realm but also those foreign coins, such as Spanish reals, to which 
the English laws had accorded currency, or legal-tender function, in 


THE CRIME OF 1666, 9 


England at fixed prices in English money. In accordance with this 
policy, Queen Elizabeth refused the request of the Company, al- 
though it apparently related only to the Spanish coins then circulat- 
ing in England. However, permission was given them to import 
new silver from foreign parts, which silver might then be struck into 
coins at the Mint for their special use (after due payment of seigni- 
orage), with further permission to annually export a limited sum of 
the coins thus struck. The pieces fabricated under this ordnance 
are known as ‘‘portcullis” coins, from the figure stamped upon 
them. They were of the same weight, fineness and general design, 
as the Spanish dollars, halves and quarters of the period. This was 
in 1601; the coinage ratios at that time being 15 for 1 in England 
and g for rin India. At a somewhat later date, the Company ex- 
ported uncurrent English coins, chiefly the testoons (shillings) and 
other base issues of Henry VIII. and Edward VL., which, though still 
legal tenders in Ireland, were decried in England and sold for old 
metal?. Such export, however, appears to have been without any. 
express authority from the Government. 

In 1613 the Company obtained a charter with extended powers; 
and its numbers, wealth and influence having greatly increased, it 
made several attempts to enlarge its privilege of export, one of 
which attempts was discussed in the Star Chamber, 1639, but with- 
out success to the Company. With the downfall of Charles I., the 
Company was almost extinguished. [ts aggressiveness and avidity 
had procured it many enemies, and rendered it so unpopular that in 
1655, Cromwell annulled its exclusive privileges and declared the 
Oriental trade open to all Englishmen. Two years later the Com- 
pany’s influence with the Council of State was sufficient to induce 
the Protector to renew its monopoly. In 1662 Charles II. confirmed 
this renewal and, for a corrupt consideration, permanently established 
this Company of money-changers, privateers, fillibusters and bullies. 
From that year dates a new order of menin England. ‘The Estates 
formerly consisted of the Crown, the Church, the Lords and the 
Commons. To these were now added the financiers, or Billoneurs, who 
have since almost entirely swallowed the others. Originally the 
financiers consisted of 215 monopolists under the title of the East 
India Company: they now comprise the entire world of money- 
changers and bankers. This cosmopolitan band threatens the peace 
of mankind. 


? Proceedings of the London Numismatic Society, April 25, 1895. 


IO BARBARA VILLIERS, 


I propose in this treatise to relate at some length the history of 
their privileges and to indicate their mischievous influence. There 
is romance in the history and profit in the moral. 


If 


CHAPTER II. 
SILVER. 


ILVER is rarely found in the form of metal, but chiefly as an ore, 
from which the metal is obtained by complicated processes. Nor 
is the ore usually found on or near the surface of the earth, but mostly 
in quartz veins, or in lodes and pockets which lie deeply buried in 
the recesses of metamorphic rocks. Hence silver was the last of the 
two great precious metals obtained by man; and it could not have 
been procured in any but minute quantities before the discovery of 
iron and the fabrication of iron and steel tools of sufficient hardness 
to cut the rocks in which silver ores are concealed. As for the sug- 
gestion that copper tools, hardened with tin, were sufficient for deep 
mining, we leave the inventors of this hypothesis to account for 
copper and tin metal themselves in any great quantity prior to the 
advent of steel tools. 

The dependence of silver upon steel enables us to fix its era with 
some degree of certainty. The Indian Brahmo-Buddhists, the Baby- 
lonians, Assyrians and Greeks all agreed in assigning the invention 
of iron and steel to about the beginning of the 14th Century B. C. 

The Greek date was that of Jasius and the Ten Dactyles of Mount 
Ida, B. C., 1406. This date marks alike the era of iron metal and 
of quartz mining; whether of gold, copper or silver’. 

The earliest use of silver for coins must be assigned to the East 
Indians, who, in their ramtenkis, or rama-tankas, employed a mix- 
ture of both gold and silver, called by the Greeks, electrum. 

The earliest silver coins of the West were those of Pheidon, King 
of Argos, who, according to the Parian chronicle, struck them in the 
Isle of AXgina, near Athens, about B. C. 895, from silver, probably 


3 A fragment of Philo Byblius ascribes the invention of iron to ‘‘Chrysor, who is 
the same as Heph-zstus, Molech, or Zeus Meilikios or Meilichios, From him de- 
scended Taat, whom the Egyptians call Thoth and the Greeks Hermes” Milichius 
(the Holy) was a surname of Bacchus. ‘‘ Phoenicia,” p. 340; and Noel voc. ‘‘ Mili- 
chius.” Jasus, the discoverer of iron, was another name for Bacchus, Hence all 
these names referred to the same deity. According to Polydore Vergil, the dis- 
coverer of silver was Ericthonius of Athens. This is again the same divinity. The 
era of this mythos was B. C. 1406. 


12 BARBARA VILLIERS. 


obtained in the mines of Laurium The punched stater of Miletus, 
now in the British museum, has been assigned upon artistic grounds 
to the period B. C. 800, but Mionnet contends that it is not older 
than Darius Histaspes. The electrum coins of Lydia are of a some- 
what later date. The mines of Laurium were situated near Cape 
Sunium, about 30 miles from Athens, The surface deposits probably 
contained some native silver. There is reason to believe, from the 
archaic remains found at Tiryns and their resemblance to those of 
Byrsa (Carthage), that such surface deposits were originally worked 
by the Phcenicians. 

However this may be, the mines were certainly known to Aschy- 
lus, Themistocles, Herodotus and other Greek writers of the fifth 
and fourth centuries B. C., at which last named era the excavations 
were of some depth and the ores were of calamine and difficult to 
reduce. In the time of Themistocles the annual produce of silver 
amounted in value to that of the metal in about a million dollars of 
the present day. 

The systematic working of these mines marks an epoch in the his- 
tory of silver. It gave rise to that rivalry for the trade of the Orient 
which led to or kept up the wars between Greece and Persia. 

Silver coins soon became common in all the Greek States; and 
specimens of them are still extant. The ratio of weight in silver 
and gold coins of the same value, at this period was, in India, 6 1-2 
for 1, Persia 13 for 1 and Greece 10 for 1. In exchanging Western 
silver for Indian gold the Persians made roo per cent. and the 
Greeks 50 per cent. profit. 

The use of gold and silver coins was not universal in the Greek 
States. The iron nummularies of Sparta under Lycurgus and the 
nummulary system of Clazomenz and Byzantium were remarkable 
exceptions, which, in this place, can merely be mentioned, but 
which nevertheless, especially the first one, deserve the careful ex- 
amination of all students of money. ‘They serve to prove, if nothing 
more, that neither silver nor gold are indispensable for the purposes 
of money or commerce. From a passage in Varro, preserved by 
Charisius, viz., that ‘‘It is said that silver money was first made by 
Servius Tullius,” there is reason to believe that the Romans struck 
silver coins at an earlier date than that mentioned by Pliny and that 
silver and copper coins were used for money down to the period of the 
Gaulish invasion. This system was abandoned, in A. U. 369 (B.C. 
385), for a nummulary system consisting of highly overvalued bronze 
counters, which formed the distinguishing money of the Republic, 


THE CRIME OF 1666. 13 


until B. C. 316, when the plunder of Magna Grazcia led to the issue 
of the scrupulum coins of silver and gold at the weight ratio of g for 
Feet ne capture of vl arentum)\in . By Gy'277) led in)'B)Ci\269 \to. a 
new coinage of silver and gold, this time at 1o for 1. Other coin- 
ages followed, which it is not deemed necessary to further mention 
in this place. In B. C. 206 Scipio Africanus conquered Spain for 
the Romans. Here began a new era in the history of silver. Down 
to this time, indeed, until the Roman patricians acquired such com- 
mand of the State and its possessions as to render them the arbiters 
of its destiny, the Republic controlled the issues of its mint and 
regulated, in the public interest, their number.and value. From the 
moment that Spain fell to Scipio there arose a struggle among the 
priviledged class, to which that hero belonged, to control its silver 
mines and coinages. 

The Iberian mines had been opened in ancient times by the Phee- 
nicians and afterwards worked systematically by the Carthagenians, 
They were so numerous and prolific that historical writers have with 
one accord assigned to Spain during the Roman era the same rela- 
tive importance that is claimed for America during the 16th and 17th 
centuries. The control of the Spanish mines lawfully belonged to 
the Republic; but Strabo proved—and there are other evidences, de- 
rived from the appearance of the private coins, technically known as 
coins of the gentes—that shortly after the conquest of Spain the 
patricians of Rome acquired control of the silver mines and the 
privilege, under public regulation, of coining silver; the State still 
retaining and excercising the exclusive right to mine and coin gold.‘ 
The gentes coins were struck at the ratio of 1o silver to 1 gold, until 
the time of Sylla, when their weight was reduced, so that the ratio 
stood at g for 1, and this continued until the accession of Julius 
Cesar, when private coinage and meltage was abolished and the ratio 
was raised to 12 for 1. It was during the period from Sylla to Cesar 
when most of the gentes coins, now extant, were struck. The silver 
denarius of this period weighed 60.6 English grains, Of these, 25 
were valued at one gold aureus of 168.3 grains. Hence 60.6 25= 
1515-~168.3=9; which was the ratio between silver and gold, be- 
tween B. C. 82 and B. C. 45. 

From the accession of Cesar, to the sixth century, the principal 
supplies of silver were obtained by the Romans in Spain, as else- 
where, by means of slave labor. ‘These supplies were then materi- 


4 Strabo, Geog. III, ii. 9. 


3 


14 BARBARA VILLIERS. 


ally lessened by the rising or invasion of the Visigoths, who, in 
remembrance of the cruelties suffered by their kinsmen under 
Roman masters, peremptorily closed the mines of Spain and forbade 
their being worked at all. The silver mines of Hungary, Bohemia, 
Germany, Gaul and Britain fell under the control of other ‘‘barbar- 
ians;” and though in the eighth century the Arabs conquered Spain 
and reopened its silver mines, the product did not go to Rome, but 
was employed in that new trade with the Orient which the Moslems 
and Goths had inaugurated. Substantially, from the sixth to the 
thirteenth centuries, the European supplies of silver went to the 
Moslem and Gothic traders, who swept the seas which encircle the 
Continent, and controlled the trades of the Levant, the Baltic, and 
the Orient. The weight ratio of value between the precious metals 
within the Roman Empire always remained where Cesar fixed it, at 
12 for 1; but the Moslems and Goths without the Roman Empire 
fixed it at 6 1-2 for 1, the same as it was in India. These two 
widely different ratios, the Roman and Indian, continued to antag- 
Onise one another in Europe, with more or less influence upon the 
coinages of those frontier states which did not fully fall within the 
sphere of either system, until the introduction of Christianity into 
the Gothic States and the decay of the Moslem power in Spain, 
when the Roman ratio of 12 for 1 again asserted its ascendency. 
This ascendency was, however, but temporary. Rome itself fell in 
1204 (capture of Byzantium by the Latins and Venetians) and the 
coinage of gold, which, down to that time, had been exclusively ex- 
ercised by the Roman (Byzantine) sovereign-pontiff—thus enabling 
him to keep the ratio unchanged—was usurped by every State that 
rose upon the ruins of the Empire. From the fall of Byzantium to 
the opening of Potosi in 1545 Europe witnessed every change in the 
relative value of silver and gold that provincial jealousy, avidity, ex- 
pediency, or necessity could suggest. 

For thirteen centuries the ratio within the Empire had remained 
steadily fixed at 12 for 1. During the following three centuries it 
varied in the coinage laws and coinage of Europe from 1 for 1 to 20 
for1. In 1535 the silver mines of Potosi were discovered; in 1545 
these mines were opened systematically. In 1567 the ‘‘ patio” pro- 
cess was discovered. From this period commenced that new and 
latest zra in the history of silver which it is the purpose of this work 
to illustrate. In 1591 the Spanish Viceroys in America were author- 
ized to coin silver and to furnish such coins in exchange for silver 
bullion upon which the King’s fifth, 20 per cent., and other dues, 


THE CRIME OF 1666. 15 


amounting to about 1 1-2 per cent. more, had been paid. In 1608 
the Viceroys were instructed to coin for private account and free of 
charge all duty-paid silver brought to the Viceregal mints, except 
when regard for the public interest rendered it in their judgment 
more expedient to cease coinage. This was practically unrestricted 
and gratuitous, but not yet unlimited, coinage. 

It is with this last mentioned subject that we shall presently have 
to deal. Meanwhile it is necessary to mention the quantitative in- 
fluence of gold and silver and to briefly trace the history of coining 
by machinery. 

In my article ‘‘ Silver,” in the Encyclopedia Britannica, gth edition, 
signed ‘‘A. De.,” I said that ‘‘the greater rapidity with which 
gold can be obtained (as compared with silver) has often influenced 
the legal relation of value between these two metals.”’ For example, 
when in 1668 the King of Portugal found that large supplies of gold 
were coming into his coffers from the Brazilian placers, he raised the 
mint price of gold from 13 1-3 silver to 16 silver. Hence the origin © 
—for such was the origin—of this celebrated ratio was purely arbi- 
trary and entirely opposed to the natural order of things. Silver 
did not fall owing to plentifulness, nor gold rise owing to scarcity. 
On the contrary, gold rose because the royal dues in that metal were 
so vast that the King of the principal coining country of that period 
deemed it worth while to raise its mint value in order to still further 
enhance the royal revenues. By the year 1747 the sporadic product 
of Brazil was substantially exhausted, and the King of Portugal, 
finding that his dues were now chiefly paid in silver, arbitrarily raised 
that metal from 16 to its former weight ratio of 13 1-3 for 1 of gold 
But at this period Portugal was ruined, and it did not much matter 
what the king did. The cause of her rise was the Plunder of the 
Orient and the Exploitation of the Brazilian placers; the cause of 
her fall was the sudden exhaustion of these sinister sources of wealth. 

In all questions concerning coinage it must be borne in mind that 
gold has in fact been obtained chiefly from placers; that for the most 
part the placers needed no capital for their development, and that for 
this reason and also because placer gold is on or near the surface, 
the placers can be and always have been worked by a great number 
of people at once: hence that they can throw, and in fact have 
thrown, a vast quantity of metal upon the mints in a short space of 
time. It is no answer to these circumstances that the known placers 
are exhausted, or that there are no more placers to be discovered. 
Alaska is a recent and stubborn fact to the contrary; and until the 


16 ) BARBARA VILLIERS. 


entire earth, habitable or otherwise, is ransacked and washed over, 
the retention of gold as a Measure of Value exposes all the existing 
arrangements of men and things to disastrous revulsions. 

Silver, on the contrary, is slow of production. The metal is 
locked up in the rocks, 28 cubic feet of which (mining ‘‘ drives” or 
galleries are usually 7 feet high and 4 feet wide) have to be exca- 
vated in order to bring to the surface one lineal foot of vein mat- 
ter, which is rarely more than a few feet thick. A silver mine needs 
capital and metallurgical skill for its development; while only a com- 
paratively few men can work in one simultaneously. 

For these reasons the production of silver has always been, and if 
not disturbed by legislation would always be, far more steady than 
that of gold. Its gradual demonetization is therefore without any 
apology either in the manner of its finding or production. As will 
be shown in the course of this work, it has been the result of in- 
trigues which originated and have continued to emanate from the 
city of London, a place in which there are neither gold nor silver 
mines, but a plentiful accumulation of ‘‘financial” and commercial 
shrewdness. 

I would not have it inferred from these remarks that I prefer silver 
to gold for a general Measure of Value. A general or universal 
Measure of Value is a chimera invented by the bankers of Thread- 
needle Street to foist their Metallic scheme upon the world and 
render their city the centre of a system of cosmopolitan Barter. A 
national Measure of Value, consisting of silver metal (‘‘ free coinage ” 
system), is but little better than one of gold metal. No metal, as 
such, can measure value with precision or equity. This is what 
Money alone can effect; and if there were no question of policy in 
the matter, I should advocate a monetary system independent of 
metals. But the monetary question is a practical and political one. 
We cannot ignore history; we cannot ignore the status quo; and as 
the status quo is a complex metal and paper system based upon his- 
tory, law and practical politics, the most that can be done is to reform 
it in the interest of the government, that is to say, of the people. 
For the present I would advise a return to the coinage laws prior to 
1873 and the retirement of bank notes, to be replaced by greenbacks. 
These reforms will not only benefit the great mass of our people, 
they will save the commercial classes from what will otherwise end 
in widespread bankruptcy and perhaps even more serious results. 

Unfortunately the commercial classes are too greedy to accept re- 
forms that do not promise them unfair advantages. 


17 


CHAPTER III. 
THE COINING MILL AND PRESS. 


HE quantity of silver produced by the mines of Potosi was so 
ample that when turned into money it promised to promote new 
currents of trade, new inventions and new enterprises and achieve- 
ments of every description. European States had long been destitute 
of an adequate Measure of Value There were but few gold coins in 
circulation. The silver coins were mostly degraded. The monetary 
issues were chiefly billon and copper coins, whose value depended 
largely upon government credit, which at that period was much 
strained. The entire monetary circulation of Europe at the period 
of the Discovery of America did not exceed $2 per capita. Agri- 
culture was degraded to the lowest condition; the peasantry were 
reduced to the level of animals; commerce and private credit had 
folded their wings and shrunk into the Italian ports; whilst manu- 
factures, beyond a few homespun fabrics, had practically no existence. 
The desire to immediately convert the new supplies of silver into 
money was irresistible. By the hammer process an ordinary work- 
man could not turn out more than forty or fifty well finished silver 
coins per diem and a good workman not more thana hundred. To 
coin the product of Potosi would have required an army of moneyers 
as numerous as those, whose revolt had cost the Emperor Aurelian 
7000 troops to suppress. Something more expeditious was wanted 
than the old steel die, hammer and file. That something, in the 
shape of a laminating mill and screw coining press, the ‘‘ balancier,” 
was invented in Italy about the year 1547. It appeared in Spain in 
the year 1548. In 1550 some such a machine made its appearance 
in France, a country which possessed no Potosi and produced no 
silver. On March 3, 1553, a coin mill, the ‘‘lamanoir,” was patented 
by Aubry Olivier. Another one was claimed as an invention of 
Piremem bIuCKeLA siti uly tera the: King” Henry 11, J of 


5 Benevenuto Cellini ‘‘ Traité de l’orfévrerie,” ch. ix; Renier Chalon, Hist. Fab. 
de Monnais; Henfrey, English Coins, p. 306, citing Le Blanc; Evelyn (‘‘ Medals,” 
225) relying upon Hierom Cardan, says that, Le Blane to the contrary, notwith- 
standing, the Venetian Zeccha or mint, stamped, cut and rounded coins by one 
operation long before this was done in England and France; but the statement is not 
explicit enough to warrant any altertion of our text. 


18 BARBARA VILLIERS. 


France, authorized the erection of a screw press and laminating mill 
with which to coin silver testoons, or shillings. ° In March, 1554, 

the first coins, in France, were made by the new process. * In 
1561 the mill-and-press was introduced by Nicholas Briot into 
England. In 1685 Castaign invented a device to stamp the edges of 
coins, and succeeded in turning out as many as twenty thousand 
coins a day by the new process. * 

There are still extant some machine-made or ‘‘milled” coins of 
Elizabeth, struck, according to Haydn, in the year 1562. Snelling 
fixes the date of this event in 1576, but this seems to be too late; 
for, according to Martin Folkes, Phillip Mastrelle, a Frenchman, 
probably he who had brought the newest machine from France, was in 
1569 detected in making coins on his own account, and for this offense 
he was executed; a circumstance that put an end, fora time, to the 
fabrication of coins by machinery in England. On the other hand, 
Blackie’s Popular Encyclopedia states that Mastrelle’s press was not 
abandoned until 1572. The true date of Mastrelle’s death may 
possibly be supplied by Fénélon, who states that in September, 1574, 
certain Germans, Hollanders and Frenchmen, in England, were 
detected in forging a million crowns of the coins of France, Spain 
Flanders; and that this was done with the connivance of some of 
Elizabeth’s ministers. °® So vast a number of broad pieces would 
hardly have been attempted to be struck by hand; and since 
Mastrelle, so far as is known, possessed the only complete coining 
machinery in England, it seems more than likely, especially when 
regard is had for Mr. Folkes’ statement, that Fénélon’s account is 
correct and Mastrelle was either the instigator or chief instrument of 
these nefarious transactions. Similar offenses were perpetrated in 
France. The Marquis de Tavannes assures us that Salcede, who 
was executed in 1582, had grown rich from the profits of what he 
called forgery, but what, according to the Metallic school was really 
only justifiable private coinage; because the forged coins contained 
more silver than the genuine. It is evident that the mill-and-press 
was already working a revolution in the monetary systems of the 
world. So far as it operated to discourage the further issuance of 
debased coins, like those, for example, of Edward VI., its influence 


Boisard, ‘‘ Traite de Monnoyes,” ed. 1714. 

Humphrey’s ‘‘ Coin Manual,” p. 460, citing Folkes., 

Boisard I., 142; Penny Encyc.; Renier Chalon. 

‘*Money and Civilization,” ch. X, citing Buckle’s ‘‘ Posthumous Works,” and 
nélon, VI., 241-2. 


ono 3 OM 


O~ 


F 


THE CRIME OF 1666. 19 


was admittedly beneficial. But might it not also operate to destroy 
money altogether, by facilitating its reduction to the degraded level 
and value of the metal of which it was made? We shall see. 

It has been suggested by Blackie’s Pop. Encyclo., (art. ‘‘ Mint,”’) 
that Mastrelle’s mill-and-press was abandoned in England in 1572, 
on account of the superior cheapness of fabricating coins by hand! 
A similar reason is advanced by Renier Chalon for the abandonment 
of the mill-and-press in France, by Henry III., in September, 1595. 
Aside from the improbability of such alleged cheapness, the execu- 
tions of Mastrelle and Salcede sufficiently prove that the renunciation 
of the new machine had a graver object. This was to limit the 
coinage and discourage counterfeiting. But though it was compara- 
tively easy to detect and drive forgers out of the well policed States 
of Europe, it was not so easy to discover and punish them in America. 
Counterfeit silver coins were reported in circulation and are men- 
tioned in the Spanish-American monetary laws of 1535, 1565 and. 
1595, which contain injunctions to the Spanish viceroys to trace and 
punish the offenders. 

In 1603 the billon coins of Phillip III., in Spain, like those of 
Henry VIII. and Edward VI. in England, were suddenly doubled in 
value by royal proclamation. The Spanish decree produced great 
distress and confusion. It was followed in Spain by a virtual sus- 
pension of payments in gold or silver coins and a premium on the 
latter of 40 per cent. in billon money. Worst than all, this ill- 
advised measure afforded not merely encouragement but protection 
to the Spanish-American counterfeiters of silver coins; for even the 
officers of government were indisposed to interfere with men who 
offered to them, in exchange for the debased coins of the Crown, the 
superior products of forgery. The consequence was that much of 
the newly-mined silver was enabled to avoid the production tax of 
a fifth (the Quinto), the forgers buying the metal secretly from the 
miners and working it into well-made coins of high standard, most 
of which found their way direct from America to the Orient, and 
some even to Europe. When the news of these events reached 
Spain the Crown took alarm; and fora ready way out of the many 
difficulties which beset the subject, it plunged into a new one, far 
worse than all the others: in 1608 it authorized its viceroys in 
America to freely coin all tax-paid silver. This was practically 
private and unlimited coinage; it also implied unlimited freedom to 
export and melt. 

Between the first and third quarters of the 17th century the new 


20 BARBARA VILLIERS. 


coining process passed through many experimental and probationary 
stages. In 1617 one Balancier is said to have invented an improved 
mill-and-screw. *° In 1625 Nicholas Briot invented an improved 
machine, and in 1631 he was invited or permitted by the Royal Mint 
of England to manufacture coins in the Tower of London by means 
of the new mill-and-screw; several issues of Charles I. affording 
evidence of the fact. But owing to some misunderstanding, or per- 
haps by reason of the patronage which Louis XIII. extended to the 
coining press and the more permanent, profitable, or congenial em- 
ployment which awaited Briot in his own country, he returned to it 
soon afterwards. In December, 1639, Louis XIII., of France, issued 
an edict which authorized the manufacture of coins in the Royal 
Mint by the new process. In March, 1640, he went still further: he 
forbade the manufacture of hammered coins, unless the same were 
finished as evenly and perfectly as those by the mill-and-screw, 
which, of course, was practically impossible. ** This encourage- 
ment of the new process was evidently offered as a remedy for the 
evil effects of that picking out and secret melting down of the 
heavier hammered coins (the crime of billonage) which half a century 
later produced so much commotion in England and already began to 
be feltin France. In 1645, third year of Louis XIV., all coinage 
was forbidden except by the new processs, which now became perma- 
nently established in France, whereas in England it was still on 
triage 

In that country political disturbance had for a while postponed 
definite action on this important subject. In 1651 Pierre Blondeau, 
a Frenchman, was employed by the government of Oliver Cromwell 
to strike coins by the mill-and-screw. His work, however, was con- 
fined to pattern pieces, ** which, according to the Penny Cyclopedia, 
were the first ones upon whose edges a lettering was impressed, as a 
safeguard against clipping: the serrated edges not appearing until 
1663. After some delays Pierre Blondeau in 1659 got to work sys- 
tematically, ** but here again political events occurred to interrupt 
the employment of the new process. In 1660 the Restoration took 
place; Blondeau was frightened back to his native land; and the 
early coins of Charles II. were once more hammered, as of old. *° 


10 Putnam’s ‘‘ Cyc. of Chron.,” art. ‘‘Coining.” The name Balancier suggests a 
blunder. The date is that of Briot’s invention. 

1 Boisard. 12 Boisard, 108. 

BOP roc VNU OOC Ay Ls seOlE 14 Humphreys 474. 

© Humphreys, 475. 


THE CRIME OF 1666. 21 


But the time had passed for this ancient process. Milled and pressed 
coins were being produced in France, Holland and Spanish America, 
of so much more even weights and such superior workmanship, that 
England, unless content to let the Eastern trade slip into the hands 
of its neighbors, was compelled to adopt the new process, even 
though it became necessary to employ foreign artists to superintend 
the work. Accordingly Pierre Blondeau was sent for again; and the 
year 1662 saw him re-employed at the Tower of London, turning out 
with mill-and-screw those handsome coins upon which the restored 
but improvident Charles had already granted a mortgage to his beauti- 
ful Barbara Villiers. The superior results of machine coining are 
seen by asingle glance at the statistics of the mint. From the Resto- 
ration (in May) to the end of the calendar year 1660, the coinage 
was only £1,683; in 1661, £23,200; in 1662, when Blondeau’s ma- 
chines were employed, £496,678; and in 1663; £330,507. Here 
Blondeau seems to have been dismissed, or else the supplies of 
bullion ran very low, for in the following three or four years the 
coinage did not average £50,000, Year 1664, £44,333; 1665, 
451,722; 1666, £37,144; 1667, £53,106. Whethera French mintner 
was again employed or not, does not appear; but the increase of the 
coinage from 1668 onward unmistakedly indicates the permanent es- 
tablishment of the new process. The year 1668, £124,940; 1669, 
£44,395; 1670, £143,043; 1671, A119,800; 1672, £268,688; 1673, 
£313,300. 

In the previous chapter mention was made of the ancient statutes, 
which, in order to prevent any alteration in the Measure of Value, 
prohibited the melting down or exportation of the National coins. 
Down to Edward III. the statutes against melting related only to 
silver pennies, half-pennies and farthings; and from Edward III. to 
Richard II. only to pennies and their fractions and to groats and 
half-groats, the largest silver coins of the period. After Richard II. 
there was no new Statute against melting, although there were several 
against exportation. ‘The goldsmiths, bankersand foreign merchants 
of London, always conspicuous for their unselfish patriotism and de- 
votion to the public interest, construed these statutes so literally as 
to deem themselves at liberty to melt down all the broad pieces of 
Cromwell and the two Charleses, which had been so carefully minted 
by Briot and Blondeau; and to export the metal thus obtained to the 
Orient. A penal statute in 1662 was enacted to stop this practice, 
but it was followed so closely by the opposite legislation of 1663 and 
1666, presently to be described, that it had no practical result. °° 

16 Anderson, II., 465; Ruding II., 9. 


nN 
to 


BARBARA VILLIERS. 


As Mr. Davis, a member of Parliament in Elizabeth’s reign, had 
said inreference to the same practice of exportation: ‘‘ The exchange 
is governed by brokers and as it pleaseth them, the exchange must 
rise and fall”; which was as true in the reign of Charles as of 
Elizabeth; and is as true of the United States to-day as it was of 
England in the reign of Charles. 


23 


CHARMER: 
THE EAST INDIA COMPANY. 


HUS far the monetary legislation of the 17th century related 

to a legal decision and to a mechanical invention by which 

coins could be manufactured of a uniform weight and size, a thing 

practically impossible by the process of hammering and hand- 
punching. 

By the new invention coins could also be produced cheaply, so that 
small coins of silver, of billon and even of tin and copper, could be 
manufactured economically, rapidly and measuredly safe from the 
atts of forgers. Afterwards, the monetary legislation related to an 
intrigue which originated with the billoneurs, the goldsmiths or 
bankers and their commercial colleagues, namely, the 215 nobles, 
knights, aldermen and merchants, trading with the Indies, under the 
title of the East India Company. It was consummated under the 
auspices of the king’s mistress, Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castle- 
maine, and afterwards Duchess of Cleveland. Finally, it fell alto- 
together under the influence of the all-absorbing East India Com- 
pany. | 

By the charter granted to the East India Company, December 31, 
1600, it was permitted to export foreign coin or bullion to the amount 
of £30,000 a year, upon condition that the Company imported 
within six months after the completion of every voyage, except the 
first one, the same quantity of foreign coin and bullion that it had 
exported. *’ It may here be stated that from the year 1600 the 
seigniorage on silver coins levied by Elizabeth was two shillings on 
62 shillings, the coinage value of the pound weight of standard | 
silver; by James I., two shillings-and-six pence; by Charles I. and 
the Commonwealth it was two shillings, ’* and by Charles II., until 
1667, it was two shillings to the Crown and two pence to Barbara 
Villiers. ’° The privileges granted in 1600 to the East India Com- 
pany were so lucrative that the restrictions which accompanied them 
had not yet produced dissatisfaction. The trade in general com- 


7 McCulloch, ‘*Com. Dic.,” p. 515. 18 Snelling’s ‘* Silver Coins,” 
19 Act 18, Chas. II., ch. 5, paragraph 12. 


24 BARBARA VILLIERS. 


modities was slow, hazardous, and comparatively small. After 1635 
the Company was handicapped by the charter granted to Sir William 
Courten (the son of a thrifty tailor) and others, authorizing them to 
trade with those parts of India which the Company had neglected. 
In 1637 Courten’s Company was granted further privileges, in- 
cluding that of exporting within five years not over £40,000 in coin 
and bullion to India. This practically meant silver coin or bullion; 
and it enabled the whole sum to be exported in one year. During 
the Commonwealth the operations of this rival association were con- 
ducted upon a scale of such magnitude and with such concessions to 
buyers that profits were reduced to a minimum, and the continuance 
of both the original British and Dutch East India Companies was 
seriously endangered. In this emergency the billoneurs and capital- 
ists of Amsterdam and London took counsel of one another, and in 
1649 succeeded in forming a union of the rival associations; after 
which prices and profits both took an upward turn. However, the 
union was not a lasting one. It had its disadvantages, and promi- 
nent among these were the restrictions placed upon the East India 
Company by the government of Elizabeth with regard to the export 
of coin andbullion. These restrictions were still, at least outwardly, 
observed by the Company, whereas Courten and his associates had 
never previous to the amalgamation deemed themselves bound to pay 
any respect to the like restrictions upon their Company. The latter, 
therefore, longed to be free. They represented to the Government, 
as indeed they had done several years previously, that the East India 
Company’s charter legally expired with the death of Charles I; that 
the East India Company had in fact exceeded their privilege in the 
export of coin and bullion, and had thereby occasioned a great 
scarcity of silver coin in England; and that they had ‘‘neglected to 
establish fortified factories or seats of trade to which British subjects 
in the Orient could resort with safety.”’ 

In consequence of these specious representations, Cromwell, in 1655 
proclaimed free trade to the Indies for three years; but he does not 
appear to have been satisfied with the results of the experiment; for 
in 1657 (February ro) the Council of State gave it as their advice to 
the Protector, ‘‘that the trade of East India be managed bya United 
Joint Stock, exclusive of all others.”” This led in the same year to 
a renewal of the envied charter to the East India Company. This 
charter was confirmed and the powers of the Company, except as to 
the export of coin and bullion, were greatly enlarged by Charles IL., 
April 3, 1661. 


THE CRIME OF 1666. _ 25 


In a work entitled ‘‘ The Halcyon Age of the World” I have set 
forth the various expeditions, legal and illegal, which were organised 
in England and the West Indies during the 17th century to rob the 
Spaniards of the spoil which they had previously plundered from the 
natives of America. Hawkins, Drake, Frobisher, Morgan and many 
others had conducted these expeditions, whose fruit was chiefly the 
gold and silver which had been wrung from the blood and tears of 
the Indians. To convert this spoil into money was the first desire 
of the plunderers. The Buccaneers sold it at 10 per cent. discount 
to the illicit mint at Boston, Mass.; the pirates sold it to the fences 
in England at 25 per cent. off, and the privateers to the goldsmiths 
at 5 to ro percent. off. All these parties sighed for a purchaser who 
would buy without question every lot that was offered, pay for-it in 
money containing precisely the same weight of pure! metal,'and ‘place | | 
no restriction upon its exportation to India or elsewhere. | | / | 


26 


CHAPTER V. 
BARBARA VILLIERS. 


E now come to the intrigue which was set afoot to remove this 
W restriction, and to deprive the Crown of its seigniorage 
upon coins, but which, as it happened, had the far more important 
and lasting effect to substantially deprive the State of its control 
over ‘the Measure of Value. This intrigue began directly after 
Blondeau was employed by Charles II. and had put his coining ma- 
chines to work inthe Tower. Its inceptors were the ‘‘ goldsmiths ” 
(or bankers) of Lombard Street; its instrument was a woman. 

Barbara, the only child of William, viscount Grandison, was born 
in Ireland in 1640, and at the age of 16, being already famous for 
her extreme beauty and vivacity, was married to Sir Edward Villiers, 
who died in the following year. After the prescribed interval of 
mourning the young woman married the rich Roger Palmer, who in 
1661, that is to say, a year after Barbara had become the king’s 
mistress, was rewarded for his complaisance with the title of the 
Earl of Castlemaine. Pepys tersely describes Barbara as a ‘‘ pretty 
woman... her husband a cuckold,” and says that she turned 
papist not for conscience sake, but to please the king. He adds that 
the news of her ‘‘ conversion,” in 1663, was carried to Bishop Stilling- 
fleet by William Penn, the Quaker. 

The relations between the king and Barbara Villiers, then Mrs. 
Palmer, began on the very first day of the Restoration,”® May 21, 
1660. The woman was both depraved and sordid,and she seized upon 
every occasion to augment her power and fill her purse. She after- 
wards had, or was reproached with having had, intrigues with Mr. 
Rowly, Lord Chesterfield, Mr. Churchills, Harry Jermin (Lord Dover), 
Charles Hart, Jacob Hall, ‘‘Fleshy Will of Market Clare,” Mr. 
Goodman, Robert (‘‘ Beau”’) Fielding, Ralph, Duke of Montague, 
the Viscount Chateillun, andothers. * Defoe afterwards maliciously 


20 Bishop Burnett’s ‘* History of His Own Times,” I., 160. 
#1 Harris’s ‘‘ Life of Charles II.,* vol. II., p. 293. 





CHARLES II. ASKING PARDON OF BARBARA. 
Pepys’ Diary, 1667. From a picture by W. P. Frith, 








LIBRARY 
OF THE 
UNIVERSITY of ILLINOIS. 


THE CRIME OF 1666. 27 


remarked that Charles II. had by his own efforts contributed four 
dukes to the peerage, alluding by this to the dukes of Grafton, 
Richmond, St. Albans and Buccleugh.” But if the stories of Bar- 
bara’s numerous intrigues had any foundation in fact, Defoe missed 
his mark by shooting too low. 

With Barbara’s subsequent marriage to and divorce from Fielding, 
in 1705-7, this treatise has no concern. Evelyn described her as a 
‘lady of pleasure and the curse of our nation.” 7* Pepys alludes to 
her as ‘‘a burden and reproach” to the country. ** Clarendon said 
she would sell everything in the kingdom. *° She was supported by 
a vile faction, which included the Duke of Buckingham, Lord Ashley, 
Lord Arlington (Sir William Bennett), Sir William Coventry, and 
many others, five of whom afterwards constituted the notorious 
‘Cabal’ Ministry of 1670. Three months after her relations began 
with tle king, to wit, on the zoth of August, 1660, she was granted 
by letters patent, a mortgage upon, or pension from, the mint, of 
‘‘two p -ce by tale out of every pound weight troy of silver money- 
which si -uld thenceforth be coined by virtue of any warrant or in- 
denture n .de and to be made by his Majesty, his heirs, and successors 
from the gth of August, 1660, for 21 years.” By letters patent 
dated 19th January, 1664, she was granted £4,700 a yéar out of the 
Post Office revenues. *° Besides these, she had several other pen- 
sions, and was concerned in the promotion of numerous grants, 
monopolies, benefices, and other sources of revenue. She won 
£25,000 on cards ina single night; in another, she lost £15,000, and 
would play for £1,000 to £1,500 upon the single cast of adie. 7’ 
On one occasion the king paid £30,000 to clear her debts. 7° 

The movement, which culminated in the Coinage Act of 1666, 
though it apparently originated with the East India Company, had 
long been supported by the landlord class, whose interest had caused 
them to view with alarm the influx of the precious metals from 
America which began with Potosi. According to Brantome, the 
fears of the French landlords from this source had amounted almost 
to phrensy. The Marquis de Tavannes even proposed to demonetise 


22 T am informed that it was the son and heir of this Duke of Buccleugh, for whom 
Adam Smith wrote that Treatise on the Wealth of Nations, whose sophistical chapter 
on Money still influences the policy of England and America, 

28 Evelyn’s ‘‘ Diary,” II., 57. SEEDY Sa Diary, EVin Lod. 

*5 Steinman,g2. 

6 “* Case of Her Grace, the Dutchess of Cleveland,” pamphlet. 

27 Steinmann, 100 *8 Steinmann, 79. 


28 BARBARA VILLIERS. 


both the precious metals, and employ in their stead coins made of 
iron; in other words, of some substance that capital could control. 
Pending this proposal the creditor class in France tried to exact pay- 
ments in écus and other special kinds of coins, which they hoped to 
render scarce by limiting or obstructing their coinage; but this plan 
was defeated by Henry II., who, in a public ordinance dated 1551, 
threatened with death any one who should attempt to thus defeat the 
beneficent influence of an increase of money. The English nobles, 
more fruitful in financial resource than their French compeers, de- 
vised another plan to check the rise of prices. This was to obtain 
permission, directly or indirectly, to melt the coins of the realm into 
plate, to export it to the Antipodes, to get rid of it in some way or 
another, and thus contract the Measure of Value. All that was 
needed was a repeal of the statutes against exporting and melting. 
A movement of this character was made, as previously stated, in the 
reign of Charles I., about the year 1639. The establishment of 
the Commonwealth postponed the accomplishment of the design, 
but no sooner did the Restoration occur than it was again taken up 
and pursued through the agency of the East India Company and 
Barbara Villiers. 


29 


CHAPTER VI. 
THE CATTLE AND COINAGE BILL, 


ET us commence with 1663. The object of the East India 
Company, their backers the landlords of England, their col- 
leagues the goldsmiths of London, and their agents in Parliament, 
assisted by the Countess of Castlemaine’s faction, was first, to remove 
the restriction upon the exportation of coins and bullion; second, to 
get rid of the State seigniorage upon the coins; and third, to usurp 
the prerogative of coinage for themselves. These objects they 
accomplished by means of separate measures. And here it is to be 
noticed that the Mint laws of 1816 and 1870 in Englandand of 1873 
in the United States of America, were likewise altered by means of 
separate measures. By this device the extent and importance of the 
alteration escaped attention. 

I. The first measure of 1663 was entitled ‘‘ An Act for the Encour- 
agement of Trade.” It provided that between the 1st of July and 
the zoth of December in any year, all cattle imported from Ireland, 
Wales or Scotland into England shall pay a duty of 20 shillings per 
head *°; and it repealed the various provisions that had theretofore 
been enacted forbidding the export of coin or bullion from the 
kingdom. The patriotic pretext for the first provision was that Irish 
(and Scotch) cattle, already fattened, were imported into England 
to the injury of English landlords, who were thus deprived of the 
means of letting their pastures to advantage. The pretext for the 
second provision was that trade generally was hindered by the re- 
striction on the export of coin. On July 21, 1663, the bill, having 
passed through the Commons, apparently without debate, and being 
then on its third reading in the Lords, a protest against its enact- 
ment was signed by the Earl of Anglesey, for himself and others, 
and delivered to the Commons. *° Among other objections the Earl 
of Anglesey urged the following: 


29 Anderson’s ‘‘ Hist. Com.,” II, 477. 
30 “* The Troubles of Ireland,” by Arthur Annesley, Earl of Anglesey, 


30 BARBARA VILLIERS, 


‘¢There appearing already great want of money in His Majesty’s 
dominions and almost all the gold of His Majesty’s stamp gone, not- 
withstanding the restraint made by law... it must necessarily 
follow by this free exportation”’ (the balance of trade being against 
us) ‘‘that our silver will also be carried away into foreign parts and all 
trade fail for the want of money, which zs the Measure of it.” ... ‘‘It 
trencheth highly upon the king’s prerogative, he being by law the 
only exchanger of money, and his interest (as) equal to command 
that, as to command the militia of the kingdom, which cannot sub- 
sist without it; and zt zs dangerous to the peace of the kingdom when tt 
shall be in the power of half-a-dozen or half-a-score of rich, discontented, 
or factious persons to make a bank (meaning an accumulation) of our 
coin and bullion beyond the seas, for any mischief (this meant India) and 
leave us in want of money when tt shall not be in the king’s power to 
prevent it, (the liberty being given by a law) nor to keep his mint 
going—because money will yield more from, than at, the Mint... 
Because a law of so great change and threatening so much danger is 
made perpetual and not probationary.” * 

This nobleman, whose earnest patriotism appears in all his writings 
and public actions, clearly perceived what the intriguants were 
driving at, and plainly pointed out the unconstitutionality and mis- 
chievous effects of their bill; but without avail. There was no power 
to which appeal could be made. The king was a voluptuary, a profli- 
gate, the prey of panders and parasites. The people had been 
silenced; the press was without influence; the Commons were in the 
pockets of the East India Company; and the Lords were, many of 
them, suitors at the palace for the forfeited estates, titles, benefices, 
monopolies and privileges which the king squandered, or his favor- 
ites offered for sale. * 

The corrupt character of the Cattle and Coinage Bill is indicated 
by the indecent haste and urgency which were manifested in the 
Lords to pass it. The Duke of Buckingham (a relative of Barbara 
Villiers), who usually did not rise until eleven o’clock in the 
morning, was now at his post at the opening of each session and 
remained to the last; ‘‘and it grew quickly evident that there were 
other reasons which caused so earnest a prosecution of it above the 
encouragement of the breed of cattle in England, insomuch as the 
Lord Ashley, who, next the Duke, (of Buckingham) appeared to be 


31 Cobbett's ‘‘ Parliamentary History,” IV, 293. 
32 “*State of the Kingdom,” written by the Earl of Anglesey in 1682, and first 
published by Sir John Thompson in 1694. 


THE CRIME OF 1666. 31 


the most violent supporter of the bill, could not forbear to urge it as 
an argument for the prosecuting it, that if this bill did not pass, all 
the rents in Ireland would rise,” etc. ‘*‘ The whole debate upon the 
bill was so disorderly and unparliamentary that the like had never 
been before; no rules or orders of the House for the course and 
method of the debate were observed.’”” The members of the corrupt 
faction spoke out of their turn and more often than they had a right 
to speak, and this gave rise to many violent scenes. ‘‘In fine there 
grew so great alicense of wordsin this debate, and so many personal 
reflections that every day some quarrels arose to the great scandal 
and dishonor of a Court that was the supreme judicatory of the king- 
dom. ‘‘Buckingham was challenged to mortal combat by Lord Ossory, 
and after escaping this danger by skulking the meeting and charging 
his opponent in the House with having delivered an unlawful chal- 
lenge to him, was assaulted with blows by the indignant Marquis of 
Dorchester. * 

In spite of all this and of many conferences between the Lords 
and Commons, whose obstinacy refused all accommodation or com- 
promise, the bill was passed, after ‘‘ Berwick-on-Tweed”’ was sub- 
stituted for ‘‘Scotland” and the word ‘‘foreign”’ was prefixed to 
‘‘coin and bullion.” This measure appears in the Statute Book as 
the 15 Charles II., c. 7. ** The preamble to the coinage provision 
is in the following words: 

§ XII. Whereas, ‘Several considerable and advantageous trades 
cannot be conveniently driven and carried on without the species of 
money or bullion, and that it is found by experience that they are 
carried in greatest abundance (as to a common market) to such places 
as give free liberty for exporting the same, and the better to keepin 
and increase the current coins of this kingdom’’—therefore let us 
resolve to let them freely go out! In other words, after August 1, 
1663, leave is given to export all foreign coins or bullion of gold or 
silver, free of interdict, regulation, or duties of any kind. 

Another preamble occurs in § V to the effect that in order to keep 
the colonies in America and elsewhere in firmer dependence upon 
England, be it enacted (in §§ VI to XI) that henceforth all trade to 
and from such colonies may be conducted only in British ships, be- 
longing, of course, though this is not mentioned in the act, to the 
East India Company, or their coadjutors, who sought, promoted. or 
assisted in the enactment of these mischievous measures. 


83 Clarendon’s ‘‘ Life,” 375. 84 Statutes, VIII, 160. 


32 BARBARA VILLIERS. 


In every instance, whether the legislation related to the fattening 
of cattle or the export of coin, or the colonial trade, patriotic 
reasons were alleged as the motive; in every instance, the real motive 
was a corrupt and selfish one. 

The export of coin was solely for the benefit of the East India 
Company, whose active member and clever apologist was Sir Josiah 
Child. This arch intriguant succeeded in getting many of his co- 
partners (now numbering 556) returned as members of the Commons, 
and, as we shall presently see, he kept a guilty hold upon them and 
others. The Irish Cattle Clause was a palpable bribe to the English 
landed interest in the House of Lords; whilst the Colonial Clause 
prevented the Americans from participating in the Oriental trade, 
and at the same time sufficed to appease those British ship-owners who 
did not enjoy the advantage of being shareholders in the East India 
Company. The moral status of Parliament at this period may be 
gathered from the fact that on July 27, 1663, a bill for the better 
observance of the Sabbath (probably closing the public-houses and 
restricting the liquor traffic), which bill had been enacted and was 
ready for the Royal assent, was ‘‘lost off the table of the House of 
Lords;”’ and on May 13, 1664, Mr. Brynne was censured in the House 
for ‘‘altering the draft of a bill relating to public-houses.” °° But 
there is more to be said on this subject as we proceed. 

The immediate effect of the export-of-coin measure was to increase 
at a single bound the exports of silver coin, from England to the 
Orient, from £40,000 or -£50,000, to £400,000, or £500,000 per 
annum. * Pollexfen says £40,000 increased to £600,000. *” 

Its further effects, the scarcity of coin in England, the clipping of 
the hammered coin, and the great recoinage of 1696 ** are eloquently 
set forth by Macaulay, who, however, has entirely overlooked the 
source of all this mischief. While the act confined the exportation 
permit to foreign coin and bullion, it practically also permitted the 
exportation of English coin. All that was necessary was to melt the 
latter to bullion, which thus, it was argued, became foreign bullion, 
for it had originally come from Spanish America. In fact and apart 
from this subterfuge, there are practically no means to distinguish 
the nationality or origin of an ingot of gold or silver metal. Under 


35 «* Parliamentary History,” IV, 286, 292. 

*S Snelling’s ‘‘ Silver Coins,” 46, note. 37 Anderson’s ‘‘ Hist. Com.,” II, 476. 

88 Anderson, sub anno, estimates it at 16 millions sterling and says it first gave oc- 
casion for the issue of Exchequer Bills. They were of £5 and £10 each and circu- 
lated as money. 


THE CRIMF OF 1866. 33 


these circumstances, the best of the foreign and English silver coins, 
the broad pieces of Spain and the milled coins of England, were 
melted down and shipped to India by Sir Josiah Child and his patriotic 
associates, and there exchanged for their own private benefit, for 
gold bullion at 9 to 1o for 1. 

II. The next step of the Company was to obtain control of the 
Royal Prerogative of coinage and erect a mint of their own. By 
these means they would become the exchangers and coiners, not 
merely of the bullion which passed through Madras and the ports 
which had beeen opened to them, but through all the ports of India. 
At the same time it was not desirable to quite destroy the Royal 
Prerogative, for fear that distant and unlawful mints, like that of 
John Hull, in Boston, Massachusetts, might cease to confine their 
issues to local coins and extend them to others destined for the profit- 
able trade of India. * To prevent this calamity, the Royal Preroga- 
tive was kept nominally alive, while, so far as the East India Com- 
pany and the moneyed classes were concerned, not a vestige of it 
was permitted to remain. 


39 The Massachusetts ‘‘ Pine Tree” shillings were struck during the thirty years, 
1651-81. They contained 60 grains of silver, 0.925 fine. Snelling says the seignior- 
age was 5 per cent; Hutchinson says 6 I-2 per cent. 


34 


COA Pie siy fae 


SURRENDER OF THE COINAGE PREROGATIVE. 


40 


HIS brings us to the coinage legislation of 1666-7. Some 
twenty years after the Company had obtained from Elizabeth 

the privilege to export £30,000 a year in portcullis coins, Mr. 
Francis Day, one of the Company’s agents, purchased a concession 
from the Rajah of Madras to strike ‘‘ Three-swamy,” or Lakshmi 
pagodas of gold at their factory and fort of St. George. Lakshmi 
was the wife of Ieshna or Vishnu. She was the mother of gods, the 
Indian Maia, Ceres, or Venus, the personification of maternity, 
abundance and increase. The Hindu Rajah who permitted the 
English merchants to strike these coins, was, no doubt, persuaded that 
they would be better or more economically and numerously fabricated 
than with the rude appliances of the native mintners; and that there- 
fore the venerated image which they bore would be circulated far and 
wide. What the accommodating English merchants really designed 
was that they should go into the melting-pots of Europe; and this 
desi&i was fully carried out. In 1661 Charles II. obtained, as part 
of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza, sister of Alfonso VI., King 
of ¥ortugal, the island and city of Bombay, *t which down to that 
year had belonged to the Crown of Portugal. In 1665 (Articles of 
January 14) it was taken possession of by the British Crown. On 
March 27, 1668, it was sold by Charles to the East India Company, 
together with all political powers necessary to its maintenance and 
defence, with the exception of the factory and fort of St. George at 
Madras. This was the beginning of the territorial possessions of 
the East India Company. It thus acquired the elements of a State; 
land, a people, certain political powers, and an armyand navy. But 
one thing more was needed to complete its sovereignty: the power to 
coin, to evaluate by denominations and to circulate, money. This 


40 Until 1752, the official year, as with the Romans, began on Ist March. Brady, 
I., 64; Haydn, voc. ‘‘ Year,” says 25th March, This is still the official year. The 
coinage bill was passed in February 1666-7. 

41 Bombay is a Portuguese name, derived from Bombahia, or Fine Bay. 


THE CRIME OF 1666. Rh) 


had been the object of the Act under consideration, which was put 
upon its passage shortly after Bombay was acquired by the Crown 
and when the Company fully expected to obtain that place from the 
complaisant Charles. Any open attempt to wrest the coining power 
from the Crown of England would have met with the resistance of a 
nation always jealous of its political rights. No Englishman would 
have listened to the proposal fora moment. But openness was not 
the Company’s mode of procedure. Rather was it subterfuge and 
bribery. It first secured the influence of the Speaker and euphemis- 
tically entitled the bill, which under his auspices was introduced to 
the House of Commons, ‘‘An Act for the Encouragement of Coin- 
age.” Inthe speech to the king made by the Speaker, this pliant 
official referred to the scarcity of coin, which, as compared with the 
period preceeding the Commonwealth, had made itself generally ap- 
parent, by saying that: ‘‘We find your Majesty’s mint not so well 
employed as formerly; and the reason is because the fees and wages 
of the officers and workmen is in part paid out of the bullion that is 
brought to be coined, and what is wanting is made up by your 
Majesty. We have, therefore, for the ease of your Majesty, and 
those that bring in any plate or bullion to be coined there, made 
another provision, by an imposition upon wines, brandy, and cyder 
imported from any foreign nations.” * 

The argument to the king was, in plain language, as follows: ‘‘ As 
compared with the Elizabethan era, there is ascarcity of coin inthe 
kingdom. This is probably due at bottom to the amelioration 
by the Spanish Crown in 1608 of the previously heavy seigniorage 
levied upon the coinage of silver in Spanish America, and by a similar 
amelioration in the United Provinces of the Netherlands. It is due 
immediately to the unwillingness of our mintners to employ the new 
mill-and-screw process, by which, so recently as four years ago, a 
mintner in a given interval could strike twenty or more times as 
much money as now. But as our London merchants in their wisdom 
choose to attribute the scarcity of coin to the very moderate seignior- 
age levied by your Majesty, and especially to that surcharge of two- 
pence in the pound tale of silver imposed for the benefit of your 
mistress, Barbara Villiers, which has occasioned great scandal and 
dissatisfaction, we propose to remedy the matter by taxing ourselves, 
your always loyal commoners, in paying a duty upon all future im- 
portations of spirits, wines, beer, cyder and vinegar, and by abolishing 


4? «Parliamentary History,” IV, 355. 


36 BARBARA VILLIERS. 


the seigniorage altogether. As the existing seigniorage, grievous 
as it appears to our London merchants, (especially of the East India 
Company) does not in fact pay the expenses of your Majesty’s mint, 
this duty upon spirits, etc., will ease your Majesty of the deficit 
which now you are obliged to make good, and at the same time—as 
you will observe in Section XII—it will provide a sure annuity of 
£600 a year which your Majesty will be enabled to settle upon 
Barbara, in place of that precarious one hitherto afforded her by the 
comparative inactivity of the mint, Thus all parties will be gratified, 
and we, your loyal commoners, the only losers. The scarcity of coin 
will be remedied, bullion in vast quantities will flow into the mint, 
the merchants will rejoice, the phrase ‘free coinage’ will tickle the 
ears of a people yearning for freedom of any sort, the duties on 
liquors will please the already established publicans aud brewers, 
your Majesty will be relieved of expense and Barbara will not only 
be provided for, but what is perhaps still more desirable, (now that 
you have other beauties in view), it will place her annuity entirely in 
your Majesty’s power, which now is a public charge and cannot be 
withdrawn or withheld without the open and discreditable repudia- 
tion of a royal grant. Upon our shoulders alone will the extra bur- 
den fall. We shall bear it willingly, both as a proof of our profound 
attachment to your Majesty’s person, and because it complies with 
the desire of that noble and unselfish body of London merchants, 
goldsmiths, and dealers in money, whose prosperity is ever synony- 
mous with that of the kingdom.” 

Through the united influence of the various parties who expected 
to profit by this measure, and aided by the bribes of the East India 
Company, this iniquitous and mischievous bill was got through Par- 
liament and obtained the royal assent. It swept away not only the 
seigniorage of the Crown, but also its control over the issuance of 
money, because it left this to the volition and pleasure of those who 
choosed to bring metal to the mint to be coined, and these were 
practically the East India Company and the goldsmith class, with 
which it co-operated and which it influenced. By a rule of the coin- 
ege which was afrerwards made, refusing any but large deposits of 
bullion (the limit is now £10,000) the general public was virtually 
shut out from the mint, which was thus fully subjected to the control 
of the intriguants. 

Judging from the remarks of the Speaker quoted above, as of the 
date of January, 1667, the Act 18, Charles II., c. 5, was retroactive; 
for in clause I it is made to operate from December 20, 1666, for five 


THE CRIME OF 1666. 37 


years, and ‘‘until the end of the first session of Parliament then 
next following and no longer.” It was really passed in January or 
February, 1667, probably the latter, and with certain unessential 
modifications was kept in force by 25 Charles II., c. 8, and by sub- 
sequent enactments down to 9 George III., c. 25 (year1768), when 
it was made perpetual. ** By a subsequent enactment, 38 George 
III., c. 59 (year 1798), the gratuitous and unlimited coinage of silver, 
at the request of private individuals, was restricted. By 56 George 
III., c. 68 (year 1816), it was suspended; and in 1870 it was abol- 
ished altogether; but it has been continued as to gold down to the 
present time. ** ‘ 

The act of 1666 entirely failed to realise any of the expectations 
that were held out in its title or preamble. It did not increase the 
coin of the kingdom, but on the contrary, diminished it. It did not 
ease the king, but on the contrary, robbed the State of its preroga- 
tive of coinage and the profits it would have made by the Indian 
exchange; it did not promote the trade and commerce of the king- 
dom, but only that of the East India Company. It did not even 
answer the expectations of Barbara Villiers, through whose influence, 
more than any other, it owed its success in the Lords; for she was 
soon after supplanted in the king’s affections by the Duchess of 
Richmond, and she (Barbara) thrown aside as a broken toy. To 
everybody but the East India Company the bill was deceptive and 
injurious. It was engendered by avidity, spawned in corruption, 
and has worked nothing but mischief down to the present moment. 

In the House of Lords, February 22, 1670, Lord Lucas declared 
that this bill had promoted a further scarcity of money. *° Sir 
Dudley North was even more emphatic. He was ‘‘infinitely scan- 
dalised at the folly of this law, which made bullion and coined money 
par; so that any man might gain by melting; as, when the price of 
bullion riseth, a crown (5 shillings) shall melt into five shillings-and- 
sixpence; but on the other side, nothing could even be lost by coin- 
ing; for, upon a glut of bullion he might get that way too, and upon 
a scarcity, melt again; and no kind of advantage by increase of 
money, as was pretended, like to come out.”’ 


43 This was two years after the battle of Plassey and the introduction of a silver 
monetary system into India by the East India Company to supplant the gold and 
billon currency of the Moguls. 

44 Report and Papers relating to the International Monetary Conference, held in 
Paris, 1879. Appendix, pp. 309, et seq. 

4° “History of Parliament,” second reading to Subsidy Bill. 


38 BARBARA VILLIERS. 


The Lord Treasurer gave some of the banker-goldsmiths and Sir 
Dudley North a meeting. ‘‘Charles Duncombe, @ great advancer, 
had whispered somewhat in his lordship’s ear, that made him inclinable 
to the bill. Sir Dudley North reasoned with him against it, beyond 
reply, and then the argument was: ‘Let there be money, my Lord; 
by God, let there be money!’ The reasons why this scheme pre- 
vailed were first that the Crown got by the coinage duty, to wit, the 
imposts on spirits, wines, beer, etc., out of which was to be paid the 
substitute annuity to Barbara Villiers; next, that the goldsmiths, 
who gained by the melting trade, were advancers to the Treasury and 
its favorites. The country gentlemen are commonly full of one pro- 
found mistake: which is, that if a great deal of money be made, they 
must, of course, have a share of it; such being the supposed conse- 
quence of what they call plenty of money. So little do assemblies 
of men follow the truth of things in their deliberations, but shallow 
unthought prejudices carry them away by shoals. In short, the bill 
passed, and the effects of it have been enough seen and felt; how- 
ever, the evil has since been, somewhat, but not wholly, remedied.” * 

I am quite at a loss to imagine in what manner this evil hath since 
been remedied, either wholly or partly. On the contrary, the mis- 
chievous influence of this measure continually augments as time 
advances. The Rev. Dr. Ruding, in his ‘*‘ Annals of the Coinage,” 
written during the early part of the present century, than whom no 
more cautious, impartial, nor competent authority could be cited, 
says in reference to this bill: ‘‘Its influence has been most fatal to 
the mint.” *” Said J. R. McCulloch, writing in 1844: ‘‘ Down to 
1666 a seigniorage or duty upon the coinage was usually charged 
upon the gold and silver coins issued by the mint; and it may be 
easily shown that the imposition of such a duty, when it is not car- 
ried to an undue height, is advantageous. A coin is more useful 
than a piece of uncoined bullion of the same weight and purity; the 
coinage fitting it to be used as money, while it does not unfit it to 
be used for any other purpose. When, therefore, a duty of seignior- 
age is laid upon coin, equal to the expense of coinage, it circulates 
at its real value; but when this charge is defrayed by the public, it 
circulates at less than its real value, and is consequently either melted 
down or exported whenever there is any demand for bullion in the 
arts, or any fall in the exchange.” *° 


#6“ Tife of Sir Dudley North,” p. 79. 
47 Ruding, II, 12. See Harry Pollexfen’s criticism on this Act. 
48 McCullough’s ‘‘Commercial Dictionary,” ed. 1844, p. 305. 


s 


THE CRIME OF 1666. 39 


But neither North, Ruding, nor McCulloch saw the whole of the 
mischievous influence of this legislation, because at the time that 
they wrote (previous to the demonetization of silver), these influ- 
ences were not fully developed. We now perceive that these eminent 
authorities omitted the consideration of a circumstance invested 
with the profoundest importance. It has become a widespread be- 
lief that a coin, for example, a sovereign or a dollar, is merely a piece 
of metal whose value is determined by its weight and fineness, which 
weight and fineness is certified by the State, and that this is all that 
is effected by such stamp or seal of the State. So far is this from 
being true that were the State to fabricate two kinds of coins of pre- 
cisely the same weight and fineness, on one of which is stamped: 
‘‘ This piece contains 25.8 grains of gold o.9 fine,” and on the other 
merely: ‘‘ This piece is one dollar,” I venture to say that, with open 
mints for the former, and all other mint laws swept away, the latter 
would command a premium of at least twenty per cent. With the 
mints closed to coinage for private individuals such premium would 
rise to 50, 100, possibly to several hundred per cent. Such is the 
superiority of legal tenders over mere bits of metal; such the value 
of government seal and endorsement; such the measure of the 
gratuity which by this mischievous law the government confers not 
upon the industrious miner or producer, but upon the idle speculator 
in bullion and exchange. 

This law, which deprives the government of seigniorage, throws 
upon it the whole burden and expense of coinage; the maintenance 
of the mints and mint officers; the cost of watching, detecting, ar- 
resting and punishing counterfeiters; the loss of metal in smelting 
and refining; the loss by robbery and defalcation; and finally, the 
loss occasioned by the wear and tear of coins. These various items 
in the United States amount to several millions a year. They should 
properly come out of the coins, because they are all sustained for 
the benefit of the coins. A charge of ‘‘retinue,” or ‘‘brassage”’ 
should cover the cost of fabrication and maintenance of the mints; 
while the superior value imparted to the metal by the imposition of 
the government stamp, should be compensated by a seigniorage. 
Such charges were common to all mints previous to the plunder of 
America and ascendancy of the goldsmith class. They were then 
swept away for the benefit of Barbara Villiers, the East India Com- 
pany, and the community of billoneurs. 

Here I am tempted to narrate a story concerning that illicit 
mint in Boston which afterwards gave rise to so much irritation 


40 BARBARA VILLIERS. 


between the British government and the New England colonists 
that became one of the causes which led to the Revolution. 
Charles II., upon being shown one of the Pine-tree shillings 
struck by this mint, became greatly offended at the assum)- 
tion of the coinage prerogative by the Americans, a prerogative 
which, it must be remembered, he had already sold to the East India 
Company. He told Sir Thomas Temple that he would make the 
Americans rue the day when they had dared usurp the royal preroga- 
tive of coinage; but being informed that the Tree which appeared 
upon the coins was intended for the Royal Oak that had sheltered 
him in the days of his distress, he relented; and declaring that the 
American colonists were ‘‘honest dogs,” he spared his distant 
thunder. *° 


49 Humphreys, p. 478. 


4I 


CHAPTER) Vii, 


BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION, 


T is now in order to review the operations of the East India Com- 
| pany with reference to the coinage and to weigh the evidences 
concerning the means which they emyloyed to procure the passage 
of the act of 1666-7. As before stated, the Company acquired 
Bombay in 1668. Two years afterwards (1670) the Cabal Ministry 
was formed, and one year later (1671), the Company erected a mint 
in Bombay. * This was the same year, January, 1671-2, in which 
Charles II., after having solemnly assured the merchants of London 
that their deposits in the Royal Exchequer were perfectly safe and 
inviolable, coolly robbed them of the whole amount, about £1, 328,526, 
and closed the Exchequer to further demands. Perhaps he had by 
this time discovered how the Crown had been cheated by the Act of 
1666-7, and deemed himself justified in making reprisals from the 
class that had deceived him. But unfortunately, financial reprisals 
more often injure the innocent than the guilty. In getting even 
with the goldsmiths, Charles ruined ten thousand private families, 
innocent of crime against either him or the State. ° 

By its fourth charter, dated October 5, 1677, the East India Com- 
pany was authorized by the Crown to coin in India and with its own 
stamp, both gold, silver, copper, and lead. * During the fifteen 
years which followed this grant, the Company must have transported 
from Europe to the Orient and there exchanged for gold, or for East 
India goods at Oriental gold prices, something like £7,500,000 in 
silver. If to this is added £40,000 a year from 1601 to 1666 and 
£400,000 a year from 1666 to 1677, the grand total of silver exported 


50 The Cabal Ministry consisted of Sir Thomas, afterwards Lord Clifford (C.), 
Lord Ashley (A.), afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury, George Villiers, Duke of Buching- 
ham (B.), Henry Bennet, afterwards Earl of Arlington, (A.), and John Maitland, who 
was also Lord Thirlestane and Earl of Lauderdale (L.). Most of these men were 
concealed papists; Bennet’s daughter was married to the Duke of Grafton, one of 
Barbara Villiers’ sons. 

51 Anderson, II, 519; Sinclair’s ‘‘ Hist. Br. Rev.,” 396. | His father, Charles I., 
had previously (in 1638) robbed the Treasury of £200,000, Anderson, II, 386. 

52 Del Mar’s ‘‘ Hist. Monetary Systems,” 474. 


42 BARBARA VILLIERS. 


by this Company to the Orient, down to the beginning of 1693, could 
scarcely have fallen short of 415,000,000, upon which it secured an 
average profit, after all expenses and losses were paid, of not less 
than one third, orsay 45,000,000. I am aware that, according to the 
accounts presented by the Company to Parliament, the exports of 
coin and bullion to India were much less, ** but in the first place, 
these statistics only cover ‘‘ India,” not the Orient generally, and in 
the second place, they are refuted by the opinions of Pollexfen and 
all contemporary writers, (except those in the interest of the Com- 
pany,) who unanimously declared that such exports, after 1666, 
amounted on the average to more than half a million pounds sterling 
a year. 

When the East India Company gained a footing in the Orient, a 
monetary change was in progress which had commenced in the 14th 
century and was not yet completed. ‘The Moslem conquests in the 
Orient had transported to the Mediterranean the accumulations of 
the precious metals in India and left that country under the necessity 
of employing currencies which consisted chiefly of copper coins and 
cowrie shells. In employing such measures of value no stable ratio 
of exchange could be established wlth Bassoura or Bagdad, a fact 
which greatly hampered the Arabian trade. To remedy this difficulty, 
and for other good reasons, Mahomet-bin-Tuglak, Emperor of Delhi, 
A. D. 1324-51, introduced in place of the copper coins a system of 
silver and silver-plated ones, which he hoped would displace the 
former. This was the first step towards a silver, or rather a billon 
coinage; and although not altogether successful, it led to better 
systems as time went on. In 1542 Sher Shai succeeded in estab- 
lishing in the circulation the four-dirhem pieces, previously called 
tankahs and now first called rupees. In 1555-1604 Akbar the Great 
interdicted private coinage and made a notable but abortive attempt 
to establish all payments on the basis of silver coins struck by the 
State. In the reigns of his successors, Jehangeer, Shah Jehan and 
Auranzeb, this reform made but little progress, so that when, during 
the reign of this last named Emperor of Delhi, the East India Com- 
pany began to strike coins at Bombay, the circulation generally, 
throughout the open parts of India, still largely consisted of copper 
and billon coins—the superior silver coins and the gold coins remain- 
ing in and about the capital cities and trading ports. To supply the 
deficiency of silver coins, by offering new and evenly-minted ones 


53 Macgregor’s ‘‘ Statistics,” IV, 329. 


THE CRIME OF 1666, 43 


for gold coins at a price (9 to 10 for 1), which seemed generous to 
the Indian shroffs, was an enterprise that profitably occupied the 
Company for nearly three-fourths of a century. Then (in 1749) 
having sold all its silver for gold, this virtuous Company plundered 
from the Indians all the silver it had sold them and once more reduced 
their oft plundered land to a currency of coppers and cowries. The 
present (silver) coinage dates substantially from 1766. 

A fifth charter was granted to the East India Company August 9, 
1683, and a sixth one April 12, 1686, which last one expired with the 
reign of William and Maryin 1693. “ Itwasin theeffort made by the 
Company to obtain a new charter from the government of William 
III., that the following occurrences took place. They are related 
in a pamphlet of 63 pages, entitled, ‘‘A Collection of the Debates 
and Proceedingsin Parliament in the years 1694 and 1695, in relation 
to, Worrupt) Practices)? 

It having transpired in the year 1694 that Sir John Trevor, the 
Speaker of the House of Commons, had accepted a bribe of a thou- 
sand guineas from the merchants belonging to the Corporation of 
London, to facilitate the enactment of the ‘*Orphan’s Bill,” and 
there being rumors of bribery committed by the East India Com- 
pany, the House, in order to purge itself of the reproach thus cast 
upon it, consigned Sir John to imprisonment in the Tower, and 
passed a resolution promising pardon and indemnity to anyone who 
should give evidence in relation to the bribery of members. The 
first result of this action was that Mr. Hungerford was convicted of 
having accepted a bribe of twenty guineas to pass the Orphan’s Bill, 
whereupon he and Sir John Trevor were both expelled from the 
House. The next result was the commitment to the Tower of Sir 
Thomas Cooke, Governor of the East India Company in 1693, 
charged with having distributed bribes amounting, as subsequently 
proved, to some £200,000, to members of Parliament and other 
officers of the government. After much prevarication and delay, 
Cooke agreed to turn State’s evidence, if a special bill of pardon and 
indemnity was enacted in his behalf. This being done inaccordance 
with his wishes, he still paltered with the House, by confessing that 
he had spent £167,000 for ‘‘services rendered to the Company,” 
chiefly towards its getting a new charter, but except in one instance, 
he could not say to whom the money was paid. ‘The exception was 
with reference to £10,000 which was given (1693) to Mr. Francis 

‘4 Macgregor, IV, 332-3. 

55 Edition, London, 1698, qto. (Br. Mu. Press Mark, E, 1973). 


44 BARBARA VILLIERS. 


Tysson, who told him he had given it to ‘‘Sir Josiah Child, who de- 
livered it to the King” (William III.) ‘‘as a customary present, and 
that in King Charles’ and other former reigns, the like had been done 
Sor several years, which by the books of the Company may appear.” 
This bribe was ‘‘ presented to the king in tallies.’”” Upon being fur- 
ther pressed, Sir Thomas Cooke furnished accounts of about £ 200,000 
paid to what we would now call ‘‘ the lobby,” that is, to the relatives, 
friends, agents or servants of ‘‘Parliament men”; for example, a 
sum of £10,000 paid to Mr. Richard Acton, was for ‘‘ Parliament 
men”; and Sir Joseph Child had advised it. Among the high officials 
and ‘‘ Parliament men” implicated was Thomas Osborne, ‘‘ Marquis 
of Carmaerthen, now Lord Leeds.” Enormous sums were paid to 
Sir B. Firebrace for ‘‘ Parliament men.” When Firebrace was ques- 
tioned, he implicated several noblemen and high officials, including 
the Duke of Leeds, Lord President of the Privy Council, Sir Josiah 
Child and Sir Thomas Cooke. The latter had also lodged a note in 
Tysson’s hands for £50,000, to be paid when the Act, which the 
Company demanded, was passed. Money was also paid to Col. 
Fitzpatrick, who had interest with Lady Derby, who had interest 
with the Queen. The only result of these proceedings was that the 
Duke of Leeds was impeached for accepting a bribe of 5,000 guineas, 
to obtain a new charter and regulations for the East India Company. 
The proceedings were then dropped. 

It will hardly be contended that the corrupt state of the Parliament 
thus disclosed, or the methods and means employed by the East 
India Company, were new; for it is related of them so early as the 
year 1657 that they had already carried their ‘‘ increase of presents 
to governors, ef cetera, to an odious excess.” °° The case of Skinner 
in 1660 is another evidence to the same effect. Here the espousal 
by the Commons of the East India Company’s interest, plainly 
opposed to decency and justice, was the cause of a rupture between 
the two Houses of Parliament, which lasted for several years and 
almost put a stop to public business. * That the Parliament, 
especially the Commons, was corrupt in the reign of Charles IL., is 
notorious; the fact is attested by numerous contemporary witnesses; 
it is corroborated by the proceedings of Parliament itself and by the 
remarks and criticisms of the few virtuous and patriotic Englishmen 
who had the courage to lift their voices against the prevailing rotten- 
ness. ‘The enormous powers and privileges granted by Charles II. 


56 Anderson, II, 443. °7 Anderson, II, 461. 


THE CRIME OF 1666. 45. 


to the East India Company against the protests and representations 
of persons well qualified to point out their mischievous and dangerous 
influences, were evidently not granted for nothing; and even were 
Sir Thomas Cooke’s evidence wanting, it may fairly be concluded 
that the exposure of the Company’s methods, which took place in 
1694, proved the means that were employed by them to procure the 
Act of 1666-7, which really formed the basis of their prosperity, as. 
it constituted the most profitable of the various concessions granted 
to them by the Crown, or the avid parasites who advised and 
swayed it. 


The reign of Charles II. was not only corrupt, it was corrupt to a 
degree that affected all classes in proportion as they wielded power 
or influence. In 1661 the king granted a new charter to the East 
India Company, without consent of Parliament and contrary to law, 
with leave to export £50,000 per annum of foreign silver, a privilege, 
that subsequent events render it difficult to believe, was granted 
without pecuniary consideration. In the same year he ‘‘shamefully 
delivered up to France the country of Nova Scotia.” °° In 1662, he 
sold to France for five million ‘‘ livres,” then more than twice as 
heavy as modern ‘‘francs,” say £400,000, ‘‘the town and port of 
Dunkirk, with all its fortifications, sluices, dams, etc., and likewise 
the fort of Mardyke with a wooden fort and the other great and 
small forts between Dunkirk and Bergh St. Wynox, together with all 
the arms, artillery, ammunition, etc.” * In the same year he sold 
the right of flooding Ireland with base coins to a company of London 
goldsmiths, who probably turned their privilege to better account, 
by floating their issues in the Oriental trade. * In 1664 the Duke 
of York and probably also the king was pecuniarily interested in the 
African Company, whose profits were chiefly derived from the slaves 
captured in British Guinea and carried to British America. In 1665 
the king granted a patent to ‘‘anill-judged Canary Company,” con- 
ceding them the monopoly of trading to the Canary Islands for gold, 
slaves and other commodities. ‘‘The third article of the House of 
Commons’ impeachment of the Lord Chancellor Clarendon, directly 
charges him with having received great sums of money, for procuring 
this and other illegal patents.” * In the same year the king repu- 
diated the ‘‘ Bills of Public Faith” (greenbacks) issued by the Com- 
monwealth and he granted to Prince Rupert the moneys recovered 


°8 Anderson, II, 465. 59 Anderson, II, 472. 
- Ruding, EL) 7, 61 Anderson, II, 485. 


46 BARBARA VILLIERS. 


from those who had purchased Crown lands with such bills of credit. © 


In 1666, the same year that he signed the Coinage Act, and as contend- 
ed, for the sake of a pension to Barbara Villiers, to come out of the 
customs on liquors granted by the Commons and for other consid- 
erations, he also granted to another of his mistresses, Frances 
Stewart, Duchess of Richmond, the sole coinage of tin farthings, 
the effigy of ‘‘ Britannia”’ on these coins being, as Evelyn intimates, 
that of the frail but fair patentee. *® In 1667, when the Dutch 
Admiral De Ruyter’s bold exploits at Sheerness and Chatham caused 
a general panic in London and a run upon the bankers who in 
turn had deposited their funds in the Exchequer, the king ‘‘issued 
his declaration for preserving inviolably the course of payments in 
his Exchequer, both with regard to principal and interest”; yet de- 
spite this solemn declaration he stopped payments from and closed 
the Exchequer in 1672. He then dishonestly appropriated ‘‘all the 
funds entrusted to the public keeping.” ” | 

In 1668 he sold the ‘‘town, port and island of Bombay with the 
rest of the isle of North Salsette,” together with certain sovereign 
rights, to the East India Company; and throughout his entire reign, 
from the Restoration to the period of his death in 1684-5, he was 
the recipient of anignominious pension from Lous XIV. of France. * 

Such are the circumstances under which this mischievous measure 
of Free Coinage was generated, such was its character and such its 
offspring: a bribe to the Crown; a premium on piracy; a stimulus to 
the vile trade in mining-slaves; and the reward of intrigue and cor- 
ruption, which were destined to breed, in turn, every form of injus- 
tice, rottenness and oppression. It deprived the State of its ancient 
control over money and has practically conferred this supernal 
prerogative upon an aristocracy of wealth more detestable than the 
tyranny from which our (American) forefathers rebelled. It has 
extorted from the people hundreds of millions for the expenses of 
mint establishments in whose support they have no interest, or else 
to make good the wear and tear of coins which are sold, like hogs, 
by the pound weight and sent abroad to have their effigies of ‘‘ Lib- 
erty’ effaced and made to do service for the avowed enemies of 
liberty. Through the command of metallic money, which this 
measure placed in the hands of the goldsmith or banking class, it 
has enabled them to grasp the control of all money, of all substitutes 


62 State papers, Dec, 1665. 63 Humphrey, 472; Henfrey, 287. 
64 Anderson, II, 493, 519-20; Sinclair, I, 396. 
65 Anderson, II, 469; Sinclair, I, 313; Voltaire’s Life of Louis XIV. 


THE CRIME OF 1666. 47 


for money and of that commerce whose indispensable instrument is 
money. ‘The remainder of the people are practically restricted to 
manual labor, the retail trades, or other inferior or comparatively 
profitless employments. 

What reason had the United States to copy this corrupt legislation 
in 1792 or to follow this mischievous policy? What business had we 
to copy England in the Coinage Act of 1666, whose main purpose 
and object was to evade and defeat the solemn decision of the Privy 
Council in the Mixt Money case? What had we to do with the 
profits of exchanging silver coins for Indian gold in the 17th century, 
or with the coining mill and screw press of Antoine Brucher, or with 
the West Indian piracies of Morgan and his fellow buccaneers, or 
with the slave trade of Guinea? What interest had we in the iniqui- 
ties of the East India Company, its murders and robberies in the 
East, or its shameful purchase of a polluted king, a polluted cabinet 
anda polluted Parliament, in the West? What had weto do with the 
prostitution of Barbara Villiers, her greed, her avidity, her hold 
upon the British Mint, the monetary legislation that was framed to 
rid the king of her presence and instal another infamous woman in 
her infamous place? I say, what had we Americans to do with this 
burden of crimes and pollution which lay at the door of the Stuart 
family and belonged to a state of society from which we had revolted 
with abhorrence? 

Nothing whatever. Yet we ignorantly adopted the whole of it on 
the day when Hamilton’s mint bill was enacted by Congress. We 
copied it all; we made it our own; and in the course of the century 
which has passed since we adopted it, we have succeeded in building 
up a class of people who are interested, or who believe themselves 
to be interested, in supporting it. This class consists of merchants 
in the foreign trade and the bankers and others with whom they deal. 
Our foreign commerce does not consist, as does that of England, in 
the profitable functions of buying, selling and carrying for the rest 
of the world; but chiefly in buying for our own consumption classes 
of merchandise which could probably be better produced at home 
and in selling our grain and cotton and tobacco crops at half price. 
England has 320 millions of vassals laboring for her in India and 
Burmah, she has forty millions elsewhere, she has many millions of 
negroes in Africa who are virtually slaves, she has fifteen million 
tons of merchant shipping, a navy equal to that of any three other 
powers, and coaling-ports in every seaandclime. Unless we propose 
to reduce our own working class to the wages and condition of the 


48 BARBARA VILLIERS. 


Indian ryot, the African slave, or the British pauper, we cannot 
compete with an industry that is built upon such a stupendous mass 
of iniquity, or which has attained such gigantic dimensions. And if 
both economical considerations and merciful feelings warn us to avoid 
a field in which there is neither honor nor profit for us, we should be 
prepared to renounce the British monetary system which is fitted 
alone for that field. Its basis is robbery of the weak and barter with 
the strong; its means are a monetary system entirely subjected to 
the bankers and foreign merchants of London; its aim is the eleva- 
tion of this sordid and cynical class to the ownership and government 
of the earth. We Americans want no more of it! We demand that 
the government shall resume the control of money. We demand that 
silver shall be coined on precisely the same terms as gold, whatever 
those may be, and that both metals shall be subject to governmental 
seigniorage; we demand that the ratio of value in the coins of these 
metals shall be as it was before and is yet—16 for 1 of weight; we 
want no international treaties nor entanglements on the subject of 
money. In short, we demand that the Monetary Crimes of 1666, 
1868, 1870 and 1873 shall be undone and the authors of the latter 
proclaimed and exposed to the execrations of an outraged people! 


49 


THE CRIME OF 1742. 


HE early trade of the Colonies had been effected by barter, but 

by the last quarter of the 17th century the population had 

grown too numerous, widespread and differentiated in occupation to 
render such an archaic system of exchange any longer practicable. 

So early as 1652 (October 19) the province of Massachusetts found 
it necessary—for it was no mere act of wantonness or of profit-seek- 
ing by the colony—to defy the Royal authority by erecting a Mint 
and striking Pine Tree shillings. These were to contain 66% gr. 
fine silver, the same as the actual circulating clipped shilling of 
England, though not the same as the theoretical or minted shilling 
of the Commonwealth, which should have contained about 8534 gr. 
fine. 

From this moment began in America a contest between Barter and 
Exchange, between Capital and Blood, between the Plunder of the 
Seas and the Credit of the Colonies, between the Metallic product 
of slavery and the Fiduciary issues of a free people, that has not yet 
ended and that never will end until the principles which Aristotle 
distilled from the republics of antiquity have again asserted their 
vitality in the halls of legislation. These principles were revived in 
the Mixt Moneys case in 1604. They were affirmed by Bastiat in 
1840: ‘‘Exchange is political economy; it is society itself, for it is 
impossible to conceive of society as existing without exchange, or 
exchange without society.” They were again affirmed by Destutt 
Tracy in 1870: ‘‘Society is in fact held together by a series of ex- 
changes.” And they will be again and again affirmed until they are 
nailed inseparably to the Constitution of every free State in Chris- 
tendom. ‘‘ Exchange is a social act; money is a social mechanism; 
itis a public measure of value, the unit of which is not one coin, 
nor one note, but all the coins and notes of like currency under the 
law of each nation when added together; money to be equitable 
must be of stable volume; stability can only be secured by national 
authority and limitation; if you want prosperity you must trust the 


5° THE CRIME OF 1742. 


national government to conserve the Measure of Value; if you fear 
to trust the government, you may indeed preserve the size of the 
coin in your pocket, but you cannot secure the profits it may earn 
for you; and persistence in this course will force ruin upon others 
and probably upon yourself.” 

During the interval between the first issue of Pine Tree money 
and the Revolution, these principles were brought home over and 
over again to the Tory classes in America, but without avail. The 
Tories affected entire disbelief in the Quantitative Theory of metallic 
money, yet they always wanted the quantity of metallic money re- 
duced; they derided paper money when it was issued by the Colony, 
but vaunted it when issued by themselves. Because they could buy 
the votes of certain individuals they mistrusted the body politic. 
This was a grave mistake; for the body politic taken collectively is 
a totally different entity from the individuals of which it may be 
composed. It acts upon entirely different principles; and so does 
Money. 

The Pine Tree coins were at first of the denomination of 12, 6and 
3 pence, and in 1662 also of 2 pence. All exceptthe 2 ence pieces 
are dated 1652, although they were continued to be coined every 
year until 1686, about which time paper money began to be thought 
of. Theshilling was ordered to contain 72 grains of standard silver, 
(0.925 fine) or 66% grains of fine silver. The extant coins in the 
best preservation contain about 60% grains fine; that is to say, about 
three-fourths as much fine silver as the newly minted Royal shilling 
of the same period; and at this valuation they were made legal 
tender by colonial law and readily passed current. ‘The seigniorage 
on the Royal coins was 2 shillings in 60 shillings, or about 3% per 
cent.; on the Colonial coins it was 1 shilling in 20 shillings, or 5 per 
cent. ad valorem; so that in fact the Crown manufactured coins ata 
cheaper rate than did John Hull. 

From the moment of the authorization of Hull’s mint by the 
Colonial Legislature, an event which dates from the period of the 
Commonwealth in England, to that of its suppression, which was 
achieved during the reign of William and Mary, an incessant warfare 
was waged, now by the colonial Tories and then by the Royalists in 
England, against American money. Its coinage defied the Royal 
prerogative; it was the money of treason; it was coined from pirat- 
ical plunder; it was dishonest money; it lowered the Royal standard; 
it inflated the currency; Hull’s charge for coinage was exhorbitant, 
etc. Much of this was true; yet except the first one or two, these 


THE CRIME OF 1742. 51 


charges were equally true of the British shilling of that day. That 
also was struck from plundered metal; it was therefore dishonest; it 
had been recently degraded; and was even clipped and sweated. 
Worse still were the tin coins struck for the American Colonies by 
James II., 1685-88, of which 192 were ordered to pass for a Spanish 
peso, or 24 to the real de plata. But in those days there wasa great 
difference between my ox and yours. 

The contest over the Pine Tree money was afterwards merged 
into a greater contest over the Colonial Bills of Credit which arose 
after and by reason of its suppression. This will receive some fur- 
ther notice when that later usurpation of the Royal prerogative comes 
to be mentioned. 

The Colonial mint (or mints, for I fancy there was another, though 
a smaller one, in Maryland) was an open one; that is to say, it coined, 
or professed itself willing to coin, all bullion offered to it for that 
purpose. Such coins were declared to be legal tender by the Colo- 
nial assembly. As the mint did not coin gratuitously, it might be 
supposed that the seigniorage was enough to keep the coins from 
being melted or exported. But such was not the case; for although 
several hundred thousand, perhaps a million or more pounds sterling 
worth of Pine Tree money was struck from first to last by John Hull, 
it was all or nearly all exported; and very little of it remained at any 
time in circulation. One reason for this was that until 1666 the 
Royal mint also charged a seigniorage; and a second reason was that 
the West Indian buccaneers, who were the largest depositors at the 
Boston mint, wanted their remittances promptly returned to them in 
coins. The result was that the Pine Tree money flowed out of the 
country almost assoon as it was coined. Much of it was subsequently 
melted in the mints of Europe. 

For these reasons so few coins of any kind remained in circulation 
during the Pine Tree money emissions that this period may more fitly 
be embraced in a longer one, 1632-92, during which the principal me- 
dium of exchange was obliged to be ‘‘country pay,” that is to say, 
merchandise at prices fixed from time to time by Colonial laws. 

To enter into details of this wretched system of barter would 
neither conform to our present limits of space, nor serve any other 
useful purpose than to corroborate by tedious evidence, the truth of 
the principles herein advanced by generality. Suffice it to say that 
the result of being obliged to employ ‘‘country pay” was to cramp 
the trade of the Colonies into the smallest limits and to render im- 
possible any progress of the people beyond the phase of hard manual 


52 THE CRIME OF 1742. 


labor, variegated by neighborly ‘‘swaps.” Commerce with distant 
persons or markets was impracticable; transportation was undevel- 
oped; credit was unknown; the marts and the profits of American 
trade were transferred to London and there they remained. 

This system is well illustrated in the private journal kept by 
Madame Knight, an educated lady, who traveled on horseback from 
Boston to New York in 1704. While in New Haven she wrote as 
follows: 

‘‘They give the title of ‘merchant’ to every trader, who rates 
his goods according to the time and species they pay in; viz., ‘pay’; 
‘money’; ‘pay-as-money’; and ‘trusting.’ Pay is grain, pork and 
beef, etc., at the prices set by the General Court. Money is pieces- 
of-eight, ryals, Boston or Bay shillings, or ‘good hard money,’ as 
sometimes silver coin is called; also wampum, viz., Indian beads, 
which serve as change. Pay-as-money is provision aforesaid, one- 
third cheaper than the Assembly set it; and Trust, as they agree for at 
the time. When the buyer comes to ask for a commodity, sometimes 
before the merchant answers that he has it, he says, ‘is your pay 
ready?’ Perhaps the chap replies, ‘yes.’ ‘What do you pay in?’ 
says the merchant. ‘The buyer having answered, then the price is 
set; as suppose he wants a 6d. knife, in ‘ pay’ it is 12d.; in ‘ pay-as- 
money’ 8d., and ‘hard-money,’ its own value, 6d. It seems a very 
intricate way of trade, and what the Lex Mercatoria had not thought 
of.” 

But beneath this enforced archaism there were ideas; and in the 
inventive minds of the Americans these soon took form. The leather 
moneys of medizval Europe were probably unknown to the Colonists; 
even the paper issues of Milan and Genoa may have been unheard 
of, or but dimly understood; but such could hatdly have been the 
case with the leather and paper moneys of San Domingo issued about 
the year 1638, the Swedish ‘‘Transport Notes” of 1658, or the 
notes issued by Cromwell at about the same time. At all events a 
Land Bank was organized in South Carolina which issued ‘‘ convert- 
ible” notes upon the security of estates, somewhere about the year 
1675. The example was eagerly followed in Boston, where in 1686 
John Blackwell and six other persons, one or more of whom were 
from London, established a Land Bank and issued their private notes 
‘‘payable” in coins and ‘‘secured” by land. LEjitherthe ‘‘security” 
of these notes proved to, be inadequate or doubtful, or else some 
other circumstance affected their credit; the fact is that the notes 
failed to become acceptable to the public and soon ceased to circu- 


THE CRIME OF 1742. 53 


late as money. Whether they were paid off or repudiated does not 
appear. ; 

Soon after this abortive attempt to introduce private promissory 
notes into the circulation, the Colony of Massachusetts resolved to 
relieve ‘‘the scarcity of money and the want of an adequate measure 
of commerce”’ by issuing its own Bills of Credit to the modest ex- 
tent of £7,000. This was done in February, 1690, the notes bearing 
the following legend: 

‘“No. (916) . - - : - - 20S. 

This indented Bill of Twenty Shillings due from the Massachusetts 
Colony to the Possessor shall be in value equal to money, and shall 
be accordingly accepted by the Treasurer and Receivers subordinate 
to him, in all payments and for any stock at any time in the Treasury, 
Boston, in New England, February the third, 1690. By order of the 
General Court. 


ELISHA HUTCHINSON, 
easy | Joun WALLEY, Commitee 
Tim THORNTON, 


It was afterwards repeatedly alleged that this was a ‘‘ war issue” 
to pay off the soldiers in the Phips expedition to Quebec, and there- 
fore it was but just and proper to retire it as soon as practicable. 
Without entering into this sort of reasoning, because it is a non 
sequitur, the fact is that the issue of notes was made not only before 
the Phips soldiers demanded to be paid, but before the expedition 
sailed and indeed before it was planned. The notes were issued 
early in February, 1690; the expedition to Quebec was not resolved 
upon until May 1st; it sailed August 9th, landed and was defeated 
October 8th, re-embarked October 11th and arrived in New England 
November roth. The soldiers’ demand for pay was fully a year later 
than the date when the Bills of Credit were authorized to be issued. 

In 1691 a further issue was made of Colonial Bills of Credit and 
in these notes some of the defeated heroes of Quebec were doubt- 
less paid off, a circumstance which, however, has nothing to do with 
the question of their origin or justification. 

It will be observed that the Bills were not money; but merely 
promises to pay money; in other words, they were not legal tender; 
nobody was obliged to accept them outside the Colonial Treasury. 
All this was changed after the new Charter of 1692 became effective. 
The provincial government then, July 2, 1692, made the notes, now 
amounting to £30,o000r £40,000 full legal tenders, except in special 
contracts, Under these circumstances they circulated at par with 


54 THE CRIME OF 1742. 


silver coins (the parity being 8 shillings per ‘‘ounce” of standard 
silver coins) until 1712, a period of twenty years, during which time 
the population of the Colony more than doubled and the trade in- 
creased enormously. 

By the year 1712 a large increase in the issue of these notes and 
the admission of other elements into the currency, both foreign and 
Colonial, metallic and paper, occasioned the depreciation of the 
notes and clipping of the coins to the extent of about one-eighth. 
Counterfeit notes of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut 
and Rhode Island also swelled the total. 

In 1714 the Colony of Massachusetts made a new and further 
issue of provincial notes commencing with £50,000 which was soon 
increased to £125,000. A private bank of issue based upon landed 
assets was also authorized between 1714 and 1720. In 1692 the 
population was about 47,000, the note circulation £30,000, and 
silver coin 6 shillings 101d. in paper notes per ‘‘ounce.” In 
1728 the population was about 115,000, thenotecirculation £400,000, 
and silver coin 16 shillings per ounce. These excessive issues and the 
bursting of the Mississippi Bubble in France now led the government 
of England to interfere. It commenced in 1727 that series of re- 
pressive measures which furnished the first distinctive provocation to 
the American Revolution. 

These measures were not undertaken so much with the view of 
reforming the currency of the Colonies as of enforcing the preroga- 
tive of the king, which would have been right enough in England 
but wholly indefensible when applied to a distant colony. However, 
this object was sought to be accomplished by means alike offensive 
and oppressive. The Colonial governors were ordered to sign no 
more laws authorizing Bills of Credit; the outstanding Bills of Credit 
were ordered to be withdrawn; the taxes were ordered to be paid in 
coins; in short, without a single extenuating reason, the British 
ministry followed in America precisely the same steps that after the 
downfall of John Law were pursued with such fatal results by Louis 
XV. of France. When in 1727 Gov. Dummer refused to sign an 
authorization for £50,000 of new bills to help pay off £100,000 of 
old bills, the House of Assembly declared that THEY CONSIDERED 
THEIR LIBERTIES THREATENED. The Governor’s reply to this note 
of alarm was to force the House in 1728 to further contract the 
currency. 

In 1730, Gov. Belcher was appointed by the Crown with impera- 
tive orders to go on with the contraction until the note currency was 


THE CRIME OF 1742. 55 


reduced to £30,000. The Colonial Assembly again and again peti- 
tioned the Crown to revoke this ruinous order, but without avail. 
The method of contraction rendered it still more objectionable. The 
notes were not retired by paying for them with a surplus of coin in 
the Treasury, for there was no such surplus. They were to be paid 
off from the proceeds of new and additional taxation. On top ofall 
this was another grievance; the void in the circulation was to be 
partly filled by the notes of private banks, which were authorized to 
be established upon a ‘‘silver basis’ by the favorites or dependents 
of the English governor, such notes having no legal tender quality. 
In 1737 the provincial notes had been reduced to not much over the 
4#30,000 limit, and the private bank issues were about £110,000; 
while the other elements of the currency hardly brought the whole 
to much more than half of what ithad been before contraction began. 
In 1735, the worst period of contraction, money was so scarce that 
the inhabitants could not, even when threatened with a forced sale 
of their goods, pay their taxes, except in commodities; and the gov- 
ernor reluctantly accepting the situation, agreed to receive the taxes 
in hemp, flax and bar-iron. It reminds one of the ox-hides exacted 
by the Roman governor from the Frisians sixteen hundred years 
previously.* The discretion with which such a system necessarily 
armed the collecting officials must have afforded the latter opportu- 
nities for exercising the most galling oppression. 

We have no space for entering upon the intricacies of Old, Middle 
and New Tenor bills, nor for considering the influence of the Mer- 
chants’ Bank notes, nor of the municipal notes of this erat upon 
the circulation; it is far more important to trace the Equity or De- 
monetization Act that, in 1742 Gov. Shirley tricked the Colonial As- 
sembly into passing. 

This Act contained a clause which read: ‘‘If they (the Colonial 
Bills of Credit) depreciate, allowance shall be made accordingly,” a 
clause whose significance seems to have escaped the attention of the 
Assembly. Its practical effect was to demonetize the Colonial bills 
and make all contracts payable in standard silver coins at 6s. 8d. per 
ounce, or in so much paper money as would purchase this quantity 
of silver coins at the time that payment was made. Nothing could 
have been more iniquitous. 


* See ‘‘ History Monetary Systems,” ch. V. 
+ I have seen a circulating note dated Ipswich, Massachusetts, May 1, 1741, for 
some small amount, in possession of my friend Mr. L. L. Robinson, of San Fran- 


cisco. 


56 THE CRIME OF 172. 


Shirley’s next move was to induce the new ‘‘ Land Bank” to retire 
its issues, amounting to £40,000. Similar pressure caused the 
‘‘Silver””’ banks to retire their notes, amounting to £120,000. As 
this process went on, the grip upon the people gradually tightened; 
and from this they sought relief by according ‘‘free course,” or cur- 
rency, to the Provincial Bills of the contiguous Colonies. But here 
again they were defeated by the governor’s untiring zeal and energy 
in the cause of contraction. Under the threat of losing their Char- 
ter, he induced them, partly in 1744 and partly in 1746, to relinquish 
this last resource. The results that followed were most distressing. 
Prices fell, trade became stagnant, securities depreciated and loans 
were recalled; debtors were sold out by the sheriff; ‘‘many good 
families were brought to poverty”; and cries of distress arose on all 
sides. The governor was petitioned to repeal the misnamed ‘‘ Equity 
Bill,” but he refused; the representatives appealed to Parliament, 
but met with no relief. The fiat had gone forth; the king’s preroga- 
tive of the coinage, though surrendered in England to the East India 
Company was to be maintained in the Colonies; the latter were to 
have no monetary system of their own; and, under the operation of 
the British Act of 1666, the goldsmiths of London and their newly 
fledged and already embarrassed Bank of England, were to rule the 
situation. * 

What is expansion? It is forcing into circulation an unusually 
large volume of money, or else exposing it to be so inflated. What 
is contraction? It is reducing the volume of money, or exposing it 
to be reduced below the customary amount in circulation. The 
swollen measure of value is quite as unjust as the shrunken measure. 
There is no necessity for either; but so long as a nation neglects to 
regulate by law the volume of its currency, its people will always 
live in danger of one or the other of these inequitable measures of 
value, the swollen one or the shrunken one. After such an unjusti- 
fiable expansion as had been caused by the provincial bills of credit, 
it did not appear to be at all inequitable to pay off the bills in coins 
and return to coin payments; for everybody assumed that the coins 
would remain in the Colony and supply the place of the bills. But 
such was not the case. The Colony was in debt both to the subjects 
and the government of the mother country; and as fast as the coins 
entered the circulation as a measure of value in Massachusetts, they 
were shipped to London as a commodity to meet the bills of exchange 


* The Bank of England has failed several times, the first failure having occurred 
in 1696. 


THE CRIME OE 1742. 57 


drawn by the depositors of the bullion and eventually to feed the 
open mint in the Tower. The Resumption Act, approved by the 
king, June 28, 1749, was therefore not a mere contraction; it was a 
terrible calamity. 

The Act was followed by a sop to Cerberus, in the shape of a 
shipment from London of 653,000 ounces of silver and 10 tons of 
copper coins, due to the Colonial government, for the expenses of 
the Phips expedition. The Colonial government nevertheless was 
ordered to pay these coins out only to redeem its own Bills of 
Credit and at a discount prices, and to demand payment in coins for 
taxes and dues at par. This operation was commenced in 1750. By 
itself it would seem both fair and harmless, but in connection with 
Shirley’s surreptitious demonetization of the Colonial bills, previously 
mentioned, it converted all debts created at inflation prices into obli- 
gations payable during the prevalence of contraction prices—a con- 
traction enormously aggravated by the constant tendency of the coins 
to flow out of the Colony to the mother country. The result was a 
complete revulsion of fortune among every class of Americans. The 
favored official or lucky adventurer became rich, the industrious trader 
was impoverished, the creditor was lifted up, the debtor was cast 
down; and every sort of injustice was committed under cover of law. 
Worse than all, while the inflation had been gradual, and covered a 
period of many years, the contraction was made both sudden and 
severe. 

The Land and Silver bank notes were already retired; the provin- 
cial notes of the other American Colonies were decried; and £420,000 
of Massachusetts bills, which though demonetized in 1742 were still 
in circulation, were bought up and retired with about £40,000 in 
coins. The effect was frightful. Ruin stalked in every home; the 
people could not pay their taxes; and were obliged to see their prop- 
erty seized by the sheriff and sold at one-tenth its previous value. 
Commerce was annihilated; and in its place was substituted a petty 
barter that was maintained with ‘‘country pay.” Even the taxes 
were obliged to be collected in kind. In the face of this great dis- 
tress the governor relented so far as to permit £3,000 in small notes 
to be issued for change; but from the beginning to the end of his 
administration he never faltered a moment in the execution of the 
orders he had received; and these were to destroy the fiduciary issues 
of the Colonies without regard to consequences. The Colonists 
were to create wealth; it was reserved for Englishmen to exchange 
and enhance it. 


58 THE CRIME OF 1742. 


Driven into a corner and deprived of all hope of such a stay of 
prices as would enable them to effect their exchanges and pay their 
debts without sacrificing their entire fortunes, the people replied to 
these measures with subterfuge, violence and defiance of the law. 
In 1755 large quantities of base coins were imported from France; 
in 1760 counterfeit ‘‘ cobs,” or dollars, were fabricated at Scarbo- 
rough; in 1761 the Assembly admitted that counterfeiting had become 
rife; andin 1762 it was deemed necessary to pass an Act with almost 
capital penalties against the commission of this offense. In1751a 
Riot Act was passed to suppress the outbreaks occasioned by the 
Resumption Act; tumultuous assemblies occurred in and near Boston; 
and the people of Abingdon broke into open revolt. 

At this point the Royal government made a concession. To have 
refused to make it, would have precipitated the Revolution at once; 
for the people had been pushed to the last point of forbearance. 
Says a writer on the currency: ‘‘ Their prosperity had been checked, 
their trade destroyed, their property sold under the hammer, many 
of them had been driven away and the remainder were oppressed 
with a load of taxes which were payable in unattainable coins. They 
were ripe for revolt. The concession now made to them merely 
postponed the Revolution; it did not remove its causes.” 

On April 24, 1751, a bill had passed the Assembly authorizing the 
Treasurer to liquidate the current expenses of the Colony by the 
issue of interest-bearing certificates of indebtedness in denominations 
of £6 (afterwards £4) payable in one year. To this bill the gov- 
ernor had yielded a reluctant consent. Its operation afforded 
immediate relief to the affairs of the Colony, for to the surprise of 
the governor and possibly also to that of the Assembly, these certifi- 
cates circulated freely among the people as money. So soon as this 
practice became known in London it was attempted to be stopped. In 
June, 1751, the Parliament of England forbade the circulation of 
the Colonial debt certificates as money; and to leave no excuse for 
thus employing them, measures were taken to encourage loans of 
metallic money to the Colony of Massachusetts upon long bonds, 
which were to be liquidated out of the proceeds of future Colonial 
revenues. But loans of money with a string tied to each coin was 
not what the Americans desired. They had had enough of that sort 
of relief. Their Treasurer’s certificates were quite good enough for 
them; and in spite of Parliament, these circulated as money so 
freely that by the year 1766 not less than £157,000 in this ‘*illegiti- 
mate” currency was afloat. Mr. Felt hints at a much higher figure, 


THE CRIME OF 1742. 59 


but I can see no reason to follow him. The emission of these notes 
eventually led to such an improvement of affairs that in 1774 Gov. 
Hutchinson remarked in his message: ‘‘ There never has been a time 
since the first settlement of the country when the Treasury has been 
in so good a state as it now is.” But the Colony had not forgotten 
the sufferings it had endured through the monetary policy which this 
very man had done so much to enforce; and at the moment that he 
wrote this complacent sentence it was preparing to throw off forever 
the shackles which had been imposed upon it by British policy and 
British legislation. All that was needed was a plausible pretext, and 
that it found in the Stamp Act.* 


* From Del Mar’s ‘‘ History of Money in America,” 


60 


THE CRIME OF 1868. 


REVIOUS to the Presidential campaign of 1868 the following 
facts relative to the position of the Vew York World were very 
generally known or believed. 

I, That Mr. Manton Marble was not the sole or even the princi- 
ple owner of the paper. This is established among other evidence 
by his own averment in the suit of George Opdyke ws. The World. 

II. Among those known or believed to own shares in the paper 
were August Belmont Senior and 8. L. M. Barlow. Samuel J. 
Tilden was also regarded as possessing some proprietary interest in 
it. Mr. Belmont was looked upon as the principal owner. Between 
Mr. Belmont and Mr. Marble the strongest ties of interest and 
friendship were known to exist. Mr. Belmont was understood to be 
the purse and Mr. Marble the brains of the newspaper. 

III. Mr. Belmont was and had been for many years the agent for 
an European banking Syndicate. This Syndicate was the owner of 
a large amount in American War bonds and had acted as the agent 
and banker of numerous other European houses interested in the 
same bonds. These bonds by the terms of their issue (Act of Feb. 
25, 1862), were payable in greenbacks; and, although this view 
of the law on the subject was disputed in after years by the holders 
of the bonds or their advocates, it was from the legal point of view 
probably the correct one. This view is supported by the speeches 
of Senators Collamer, Wilson and others during the passage of the 
Act through the Senate (See Congressional Globe 1861-2); by the 
speeches of Messrs. Spaulding, Stevens, Pendleton and others in 
the House when the bill was before that body; and by the fact that 
the bonds when issued were subscribed and paid for in greenbacks, 
and thus fetched but half-price in gold coin, while at the same time 
other American bonds, payable specifically in gold, or about the 
terms of the payment of which there was no dispute, commanded 
full price. Among these were the 5 per cent bonds of the State of 
Massachusetts. 


THE CRIME OF 1868. 61 


Whatever was the precise legal bearing of the terms in which the 
Five-Twenties were made payable it was evidently of the highest 
importance to those who had purchased them at half-price to pro- 
cure them if possible to be made payable at full price. This was. 
only to be done by an Act of Congress which should explicitly make 
the bonds payable in coin and remove all doubt about the terms of 
payment. On the other hand, it was, by the same token, against the 
interest of the people of the United States to make any alteration 
in the law covering the bonds. If there was any doubt about the 
terms of liquidation, the country would only increase its burden of 
payment by removing it; if there was no doubt, no legislation was 
needed. 

The nominal sum of the Five-Twenty bonds which were in dispute 
and had been sold at half-price on account both of the terms of 
emission and of the doubt as to their terms of payment, was, as the 
writer is now informed, about $550,000,000. The government had 
received but about $275,000,000 in gold for them; and the profit 
(besides the double interest, semi-annually in gold coin, all along), 
which the holders might very certainly count upon realizing, in case 
they could obtain the legislation they desired, amounted to $275,- 
000,000 more. It will be admitted that this was a stake worth in- 
triguing for; perhaps the greatest reward which ever tempted men 
to conspire and betray. 

Down to the winter of 1867-8 Mr. Belmont had exhibited very little 
interest in the bond question, or, indeed, any other question that 
then interested the Conservative party. He had been appointed 
‘Chairman of its National Committee at a time when the fortunes 
and prospects of the party were very low and chiefly on account of 
the liberality with which he contributed to its beggared finances. 
Down to the election of 1868 he is believed to have contributed 
about $25,000, of which $10,000 were in one sum. But neither by 
his own utterances nor through those of the newspapers, which it 
was believed he in great measure owned and controlled, did Mr. 
Belmont manifest any active interest in politics. It was quite evi- 
dent that he regarded the Conservative party, as for the present, 
quite dead; and that he had sought its leadership less for any prac- 
tical results which it might then promote, than for what such lead- 
ership might be worth to him, or the Syndicate he represented, in 
the future. 

This future came inthe Fall of 1867. Down to that period the 
New York World, through Mr. Marble, had been specifically pledged 


62 THE CRIME OF 1868. 


to support Mr. Pendleton for the Presidency. (See letter of 
‘‘Buckeye” in Cincinnati Hnxguirer of about August 20, 1874.) All 
of a sudden its course was changed with reference to Pendletonism, 
the bond question, legal-tenders and everything else connected with 
the subject. 

Mr. Marble explains his sudden conversion from Pendletonism and 
the greenback theory by the fact that he met a Man on a mountain 
in New Hampshire; (See New York World August 24, 1874;) but 
those who know the circumstances best believe that the Man was in 
Paris and operated through an agent in Wall Street, New York. 

Shortly after this and acting probably in pursuance of instructions 
from the Man in Paris Mr. Belmont went to Washington, where he 
entertained at a banquet the Members of the Democratic Congres- 
sional Committee and other leading Democrats in and out of Con- 
gress; and availed himself of the occasion to persuade them to 
change the place of holding the National Convention from some 
Southern or Western city, which they had previously expressed a 
decided preference for, to New York. 

The first steps in the Conspiracy were taken none too soon. The 
Conservative party, which had previously been drifting about in 
search of an anchorage not too near the dangerous and wreck- 
bestrewn coast of Africa, had come upon the promising island of 
Greenbacks and after much careful reconnoitering determined to 
land there and intrench itself. This situation became so popular 
that vast numbers of the people adopted it, until at length and for 
the first time in many years it seemed possible for the Conservative 
party to succeed ina general contest with its great Republican adver- 
sary. To induce the Conservatives to abandon this position before 
it grew too strong and to persuade it to choose a battle-ground on 
other territory, was obviously the first move of the Conspirators. 
From this time forth the World became a ‘‘hard money” paper. 

On the 13th of March, 1868, Baron James Rothschild of Paris 
wrote to Mr. Belmont a letter which was exhibited by the latter to 
several gentlemen in New York. This letter had evidently been 
prepared for the purpose of being shown to leading members of the 
party, in order to influence their opinion on the bond question. It 
contained a long argument against the then pending proposition to 
make the Five-Twenties refundable for 50-year 4 per cent bonds 
without changing the original terms of payment, declared this a 
compulsory measure tinctured with ‘‘repudiation” and concluded 
with warnings of ruin to those who might oppose the payment of 


THE CRIME OF 1868. 63 


the bonds in coin, or who might advocate their liquidation in green- 
backs. 

On July 4, 1868, the Democratic National Convention met at 
Tammany Hall, New York, with Mr. Belmont as chairman. On the 
7th of July and to the complete chagrin of the conspirators it passed 
the following resolution: ‘‘ Where the obligations of the Government 
do not expressly state upon their face, or the law under which they 
were issued does not provide that they shall be paid in coin, they 
ought in right and in justice, be paid in the lawful money of the 
United States.” 

It will be seen from this resolution that, notwithstanding the efforts 
of Belmont and Marble during the Winter of 1867-8 and the follow- 
ing spring, to influence the opinion of the Conservative party on this 
subject, it had deliberately followed its own course, heedless of these 
intriguants. Further than this it showed an evident determination 
to nominate a candidate for the Presidency who was especially the 
exponent of the views expressed in the above plank of the party 
platform. This was George H. Pendleton. He was nominated on 
the first ballot, receiving 105 votes, which were increased to 156% 
(211% or % of 317 being necessary to a choice), a number not ex- 
ceeded by any candidate, until, on the 22nd ballot and with Pendle- 
ton’s own previously written permission to warrant the act, Gen. 
McCook of Ohio suddenly withdrew Pendleton’s name, in its place 
nominated that of Horatio Seymour, an advocate of coin payments 
and elected the latter as the Candidate of the Convention on a single 
ballot. 

It was rumored at the time that the use by McCook of Pendleton’s 
generous ‘‘permission” in the form of a ‘‘request” and the unex- 
pected nomination of Seymour, were the fruits of the intrigue of 
which Belmont and Marble were even then suspected. But the 
writer’s purpose is not to.repeat rumors. He intends to confine 
himself to what he 2uows about the betrayal of the Conservative 
party in 1868; and what he knows relates not to the Convention nor 
to its proceedings, but to what occurred before the Convention met 
and after it adjourned. 

This last mentioned event occurred on the goth of July. On the 
4th of August Mr. Seymour’s letter of acceptance appeared and the 
campaign began. It has been stated that Mr. Seymour was an ad- 
vocate of coin payments. So hewas. In accepting him for its can- 
didate the leaders had indeed changed the party flag, but the masses 
had not left their Island; nor were they inclined to do so. It soon 


64 THE CRIME OF 1868. 


became evident that, Pendleton or no Pendleton, the Conservative 
party were determined to stand by greenbacks; and the most popu- 
lar badge of the campaign was an imitation greenback dollar-note 
with the portrait of Seymour on its face and the legend ‘‘ This note 
is a legal tender,” etc. on the back. It is true that in the event of 
a Conservative victory the conspirators had counted upon Mr. Sey- 
mour to approve of a bill providing coin payments for the Five- 
Twenty bonds and greenbacks; but the position of the Convention 
was that but few Conservative members of Congress would be likely 
to vote for such a measure so long as the constituencies were mani- 
festly opposed to it. In short the conspirators were baffled. 

There was but one way for them out of this dilemma and that way 
was to treacherously destroy Mr. Seymour’s chance of being elected, 
by suddenly creating a panic on the eve of the contest. 

The successive steps of the conspiracy now began to appear. st. 
The sudden abandonment by the World of the support of Mr. Pen- 
dleton and Pendletonism. 2nd. Its attempts to persuade the party 
to commit itself to the policy of coin payments. 3rd. Mr. Belmont’s 
cajolement of the Washington leaders into changing the seat of the 
National Convention to New York, in order to bring its members 
and proceedings under the more immediate influence of himself, the 
World and the other instrumentalities of the conspiracy. 4th. The 
snap election in the Convention of its presiding officer and against 
his own wishes. 5th. The delegation by the National Convention 
of its entire power and authority and that of the Executive Com- 
mittee, the State Committee and the Auxiliary Committee, acting 
directly or indirectly under it, into the single hand of Mr. Belmont, 
the agent of a colossal banking Syndicate, with ample experience in 
court and state intrigues. 6th. The foisting of the World, one of 
Mr. Belmont’s instrumentalities, upon the party, as the acknowledged 
and accepted organ and exponent of its policy and views; and 7th, 
The use of the Wor/d for the purpose of suddenly and on the eve of 
Election (and when it was too late to put up other candidates) be- 
traying and abandoning the ticket, throwing the party into confusion 
and converting a victory into defeat. Four of these steps have been 
already described. The writer now proceeds to relate the history of 
the remaining three. 

The withdrawal of Pendleton, who was a candidate of enthusiasm, 
and the substitution of Seymour, who, distrusting his nominators, 
had evinced but little warmth in the contest, had weakened the pros- 
pects of the ticket; but the unexpected impeachment of the Radi- 


THE CRIME OF 1868. 65 


cals, made in my official Finance Letter of September, 1868, had so 
improved these prospects that in the early part of October the elec- 
tion was generally conceded to the Conservatives. The Radical 
party had been successfully arraigned as violators of the Constitu- 
tion, corrupt, extravagant and responsible for a condition of the 
finances which had demoralized the public and exposed the country 
to the gravest dangers. ‘The fortunes of the Radical party had 
never appeared so low as at this juncture; and already sugges- 
tions were being made for the cabinet which President Seymour 
would soon find it necessary to call to his aid in the administration 
of the Federal Government. ! 

In the midst of this promise of success to the Conservatives and 
appearance of defeat to the Radicals, quite unexpectedly, without 
previous warning or intimation of any kind, and like a bolt shot from 
a summer sky, the New York World of Thursday, October 15, 1868, 
published a brief but portentous editorial article, in which, falsely 
and basely premising that success could not possibly await the Con- 
servative party with Horatio Seymour at its head, it treacherously 
and perfidiously advised that the name of this honored statesman 
should be withdrawn and some other substituted in its place for 
President of the United States. 

Remember that the Wor/d had claimed to be and had been fully 
trusted as the organ and mouthpiece of the party; that it was be- 
lieved to be owned and controlled by men presumed to be interested 
in the success of the party; that the prospects of the party had not 
for many years seemed so brilliant; that not a word from any quar- 
ter had been intimated against Mr. Seymour; that the Convention 
had been dissolved for over three months; that it could not be re- 
organized in less than one or two months; that no provision had been 
made to organize it again that year; that without it, no one had 
authority to change the Presidential Candidate or withdraw his name 
from the ticket; and that it was now within a fortnight of Election 
day. 

The treason of Dumouriez, who plotted with the enemy to over- 
throw the French Republic, which had placed him in supreme com- 
mand of its armies; the treason of Burr ‘‘ who permitted himself to 
be used by his political opponents in order to defeat the candidate 
of his own party whom he himself had supported” and who then 
attempted the subversion of his country through a secret alliance 
with Mexico—these treasonable attempts were petty in comparison 
with that of Marble. Dumouriez and Burr were both suspected men 


66 THE CRIME OF 1868. 


and the confidence reposed in them was by no means unlimited; in 
regard to Marble there was no suspicion whatever. Dumouriez was 
fired upon by his own soldiers; Burr exposed himself to capital pun- 
ishment in a trial for high treason. Marble ran the risk of no pen- 
alty save the execrations of his betrayed countrymen. The law pro- 
tects his life as it does that of any other man and his skin is as safe 
today as its triple covering of brass can render it. Dumouriez and 
Burr betrayed their countries for the sake of ambitions which could 
be gratified with nothing less than absolute and ungoverned control; 
a passion which has at least the merit of greatness about it. Mar- 
ble’s motive for betraying the party will appear as we proceed. 
Dumouriez and Burr both failed in their treachery; Marble not only 
succeeded, but has since had the unparalleled audacity to demand 
and accept a position of trust from the party that he betrayed. 

Nothing could exceed the consternation produced by the World 
article of October 15, 1868. It was as though the general of a divi- 
sion had gone over to the enemy on the eve of an assured victory. 
The article was telegraphed all over the country on the morning of 
its appearance and by noon of the same day it was believed, in all 
the principal cities and towns throughout the country, that the Con- 
servative party had been betrayed and abandoned by its chosen 
leaders, Belmont, Tilden, Schell and Marble: for no one supposed 
for a moment that Marble would have dared to publish such an arti- 
cle without authority from the chief representatives of the party in 
New York. 

Such at least was the impression produced in Washington, where 
the writer resided at the time; and the Washington leaders of the 
Conservative party were experienced men and not likely to draw an 
erroneous inference from any writing in plain English. 

The famous article was received in Washington at about 10 o’clock 
on the morning of its publication in New York. It was seen at noon 
by Mr. Jonah D. Hoover, chairman of the Congressional Committee 
and publisher of the “xpress, an afternoon Conservative newspaper. 
Mr. Hoover was astounded with the appearance of the article and 
hesitated about republishing it inthe Hxpress. The graver question, 
though, was with regard to the Committee of which he was chair- 
man. What action should the Committee take in the matter? Should 
it ignore or repudiate the newspaper article and endeavor to rally 
the party around the ticket? Yetif the article was the deliberate 
act of the party leaders in New York, this course might prove to be 
the merest folly, and what chance had any such provincial rally 


THE CRIME OF 1868. 67 


against a desertion so open and public, done at the radiating point 
of a thousand printing-presses and telegraph wires, done at the seat 
of the party convention, at the residence of the chairman of the Con- 
vention, in the State whence the Presidential Candidate had been 
chosen, and by the trusted newspaper organ of the party and mouth- 
piece of the party owned wholly or for the most part by its leaders? 

Mr. Hoover decided upon calling a meeting of the Congressional 
Committee and party chiefs that night at the office of the Watonal 
Lntelligencer, the principal conservative newspaper of the District; 
and the writer hereof was one of those who were invited to attend. 

Meanwhile Mr. Hoover telegraphed to Mr. Belmont at New York 
demanding to know the meaning of the Wor/d article, and whether 
the National Committee was responsible for it. 

It is necessary to explain here that the Democratic Convention, 
when it adjourned, adjourned sve de, and leftin charge of its affairs 
a National Committee composed of one member from each state of 
the Union. Of this National Committee, whose headquarters were 
in New York, Mr. Belmont was Chairman. This National Commitee 
appointed an Executive Committtee of ten members, with Mr. Bel- 
mont as Chairman and a Washington Congressional Committee of 
eleven members (who afterward added three adherents to their num- 
ber) with Mr. Hoover as Chairman. There was also in New York 
a State Committee, of which Belmont, Tilden, Schell and others 
were members and an Auxiliary Committee composed of Belmont, 
Tilden, Schell and others who were members of one or more of the 
other committees, and still others who werenot. Thus the business 
of the Convention was entrusted to the National Committee; that 
of the National Committee to the Executive Committee; that of the 
Executive Committee to the Auxiliary Committee, and that of the 
Auxiliary Committee to Belmont, who left the formal and clerical 
portion of it to Tilden and Schell, and kept the vital and important 
portion of it to himself. 

Tilden and Schell opened an office for the distribution of docu- 
ments and like business, at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Seven- 
teenth Street. Belmont went to New York, where he remained all 
summer, with the National Convention and all its Committees in his 
breeches pocket; and there sat down with his friend and faithful 
follower Marble to exchange cable telegrams with the Man in Paris 
and plot the betrayal and defeat of the Conservative party. 

The meeting at the /ztelligencer office was appointed for g P. M. 
of the same day on which the World article was published. Down 


68 THE CRIME OF 1868. 


to the hour of meeting no reply had been received to Mr. Hoover’s 
telegram. There were present at the meeting Hon. Alex. W. Ran- 
dall, Postmaster General; Hon. Richard T. Merrick; Hon. Alex. 
Del Mar, Director of Statistics; John F. Coyle, Esq., one of the 
proprietors of the Jutelligencer, and his partner Mr. Snow; Mr. 
W. W. Warden, one of President Johnson’s private secretaries, 
Colonel Whitely, Marshall Hoover and several others. 

Marshall Hoover stated the object of the meeting. The World 
article, evidently inspired by the leaders of the party at New York, 
had virtually deprived the party of its Chieftain on the very eve of 
election and the moment of suceess. He had telegraphed to Bel- 
mont and Tilden, but had received no answer. The abandonment 
of the ticket was being telegraphed all over the country and every 
moment was precious. What wasto be done? Accept the situation 
and endeavor to keep the party together by at once nominating 
another candidate on their own responsibility, relying upon the 
urgency of the occasion and the influence of the J/ntelligencer and 
the Southern press (which would probably endorse its action), to 
ratify their nomination; or, wait another twenty-four hours, until 
demoralization and defection had spread far and wide, and unity of 
action was no longer possible? Knowing that in such an emergency 
every hour was precious, he said that Messrs. Belmont and Tilden’s 
delay in responding to his telegram was in the highest degree cen- 
surable. 

Another gentleman said that he took it for granted that nobody 
present doubted that the Wor/d article was authorized. (No sign of 
dissent from anybody present.) If it was authorized, there was no 
use in telegraphing to Belmont about it or in awaiting an answer 
from him, It was quite plain that the party leaders in New York 
had determined to abandon the ticket; though what their motive 
was, consistent with any regard for their honor or probity, or what 
they expected to effect by it, exceeded his comprehension. He 
feared that there was foul work beneath it. But the country must 
not be allowed to suffer from this great act of treachery. The blow 
that had been struck was a base, but not a fatal one. Seymour was 
now out of the field, but he thought that with prompt action the 
party might be induced to unite upon another candidate; and as 
every hour’s delay urged it further upon the rocks of anarchy and 
ruin, he had consulted Chief Justice Chase with the view of obtain- 
ing his consent to run. Judge Chase had replied that it was too 
late; that such a movement was impracticable and useless; that no 


THE CRIME OF 1868. 69 


one had authority to act; that the National Convention must be 
called together again. The speaker had, however, inferred from 
Judge Chase’s remarks that in case the party made an authoritative 
demand for it, the Chief Justice would allow his own name to be 
used on the ticket, provided Mr. Seymour and all parties assented. 
In the hope that this measure could be effected the speaker had pre- 
pared an article for insertion in the /xtelligencer, proof-slips of which 
he then handed around. 


The writer has one of these slips now. It rehearses the World 
article, accepts the situation, and nominates Chase for President, 
with Hancock, Adams, Hendricks, Ewing -or Franklin for Vice 
President. 


Another gentleman then got up and remarked that although there 
could be little doubt that the Wor/d article was authorized by the 
party leaders in New York; although the crisis was momentous and 
every hour of delay fraught with new danger; yet they could not be 
sure that the World article was authorized. They had better wait 
until next day before putting forward Judge Chase’s name. The 
suggestion as to the omission of Judge Chase’s name prevailed. 


Another speaker contended that the /uzelligencer could not ignore 
the subject. In deserting Mr. Seymour the World had abandoned 
the political principles which Mr. Seymour represented. If the 
Intelligencer accepted the situation it would also desert those princi- 
ples; and unless it substituted other principles in their stead, the 
party would be left without a rallying cry; and not only would the 
party fail in the election, it would disintegrate and break up. 
entirely. 


This suggestion also prevailed and the proposed article was modi- 
fied, not only by omitting Judge Chase’s name, it exhorted the party 
to rally around the Constitution of 1789, and insisted upon the 
preservation of the Union under its organic law: mere generalities. 
Proof-slips of the article, as revised, were then handed to Mr. War- 
den for the Associated Press and in a quarter of an hour’s time it 
had flown to the four quarters of the Continent. 

The meeting broke up at 11 o’clock, and everybody felt that the 
campaign was over and lost. Too much power had been delegated 
to Belmont and he had shamefully and fatally abused it. 

After midnight Marshall Hoover received the following dispatch 
from Mr. Samuel J. Tilden. 


THE CRIME OF 1868. 7° 
New York, October 16, 1868. 


Jonau D. Hoover, Esq., Washington, D. C. 

No authority or possibility to change front. All friends consider 
it totally impracticable and equivalent to disbanding our forces. We 
in New York are not panic-stricken. 


LLL DEN: 
AuGUST BELMONT, 
AUGUSTUS SCHELL. 


This dispatch was put upon the wires in New York nearly twenty- 
four hours after the World article appeared; whereas, if the World 
article was unauthorized, it should have been given to the country 
instantly upon the appearance of the article. The dispatch merely 
said that a change of front was impracticable and omitted to state 
with sufficient explicitness whether any consultation had been held 
with the World in reference to the publication of its treasonable 
editorial. It was therefore still more uncertain whether the World 
article emanated from the Committee or not. Atall events the tele- 
gram was received in Washington too late to change the course of 
the /ntelligencer. The article which the Congressional Committee 
had concluded to print had already flown all over the country and it 
therefore had to be printed in the morning issue of the paper. 

On the next day (Friday) one of the Washington conclave was re- 
quested by the Committee and also by President Johnson to call 
upon the members of the Auxiliary Committee at New York and 
clear up all doubts as to the real position of affairs. 


At this juncture the disorder was intense and the Washingtonian’s 
ride to New York was, like Phil. Sheridan’s ride from Winchester, 
to retrieve a lost battle. 


The Washingtonian arrived in New York on Saturday morning. 
He at once went to Mr. Belmont’s. Mr. Belmont was out of town— 
at Newport, it was stated. He then went to Mr. Tilden’s office, 12 
Wall Street, then to his housein East Twentieth Street. Mr. Tilden 
had gone out of town—not known whither—supposed northward. 
He then went to Mr. Augustus Schell’s in West Twentieth or 
Twenty-first Street and saw Mrs. Schell. Mr. Schell had gone out 
of town—did not know where—perhaps north—perhaps to Utica. 

The Washingtonian then sought Mr. John T. Hoffman, who was 
the mayor of New York. Mr. Hoffman was in his office. He said 
he knew nothing about the Wor/d article or its origin, deemed it very 


THE CRIME OF 1868. v1 


unfortunate for the party, and could hardly believe that the Commit- 
tee had authorized its publication. 

The Washingtonian then telegraphed the result of his enquiries 
and researches to Washington and went to see Mr. Benjamin Wood 
and other Democratic leaders in New York, from none of whom, 
however, could he learn the origin of the Wor/d article. Then, as- 
suming that Tilden and Schell were with Mr. Seymour at Utica, he 
telegraphed to them there, requesting an interview on the morrow 
(Sunday) at Mr. Tilden’s residence. Finally, as a last resource, he 
concluded to call upon Mr. Marble and ask him, point blank, what 
had induced him to adopt the course he hadtaken. He called at the 
World office on Saturday, October 17th, at about 4 o’clock in the 
afternoon, and saw Mr. Marble, when the following interview took 
place: 

Washingtonian—‘‘ At the request of President Johnson and Mar- 
shal Hoover I have visited you for the purpose of asking you some | 
questions with reference to the leading article in Thursday’s World. 
Of course you are aware of the unfortunate disorder it has created. 
We deem it of the utmost importance to know in the first place 
whether that article was authorized or suggested by the Democratic 
National Committee, or any of its representative committees, or any 
member thereof.” 

Mr. Marble (flushed and nervous)—‘‘I do not admit the right of 
the President or the Chairman of the Congressional Committee, or 
yourself, or anybody else, to put any questions to me regarding the 
course of the World. Respect for them and you, however, induces 
me to say this much: that the Committee had nothing whatever to do 
with the publication of the article.” 

This was in some measure avoiding the question. The Washing- 
tonian, without noticing this fact, proceeded: 

Washingtonian—‘‘ Then let me ask you what was your motive in 
publishing so extraordinary, uncalled-for, and disastrous an article?” 

Marble (getting excited)—‘‘Sir! This newspaper is my property 
and is not amenable to any man or set of men for the course it may 
choose to pursue.” 

Washingtonian—‘‘ Your declaration surprises me. It was generally 
understood that Mr. Belmont and others of the party owned a con- 
trolling interest in the paper and that it was the organ of the Demo- 
cratic party. It was certainly trusted as such, and it certainly invited 
such trust. In view of these facts, I think I have a vzght to ask you 
for an explanation of the course of the paper.” 


72 THE CRIME OF 1868. 


Marble (thoroughly excited)—‘‘I tell you this paper is my prop- 
erty; my property, do you understand? J¢ has been my property since 
the first of this month, and I have neither partners nor shareholders. 
The World is not the organ of the Democratic party nor of any other 
party. It is an independent sheet, and is are) at EE, to pur- 
sue any course, or print any article it pleases.” 

Washingtonian (persistently)—‘‘ Such may be the position of the 
World now; but it certainly was not its position a short time ago. 
No intimation was given of the change; and the public was permitted 
to regard it as still the organ of the party. Such being the case, I 
again ask you why you printed that article?” 

Marble (lashed into fury and losing control of himself)—‘‘ Do you | 
want to know why I printed it? Well, you shall know. I printed it 
to please myself. J printed it as a sensation article, to give eclat to the 
paper and increase its circulation all over the country. Already, the 
sale of the paper has doubled.”’ 

Washingtonian—‘‘ That will do, Mr. Marble. No further expla- 
nationis needed. What you have already said satisfies my inquiry.” 
And with this the Washingtonian walked away. 

To abandon and betray a great political party, that is to say the 
political principles upon which may rest the fate of a State, for the 
profits of a newspaper sensation! The motive confessed was worse 
than any which had been imputed or suspected. 

On the following day (Sunday) the Washingtonian repaired to Mr. 
Tilden’s residence and there found assembled Messrs. Tilden, Schell, 
Church, Hoffman, Seymour, Jr. (a nephew of Horatio) and Col. 
North, a gentleman to whom had been committed the distribution of 
campaign documents issued by the Committees. : 

The Washingtonian explained his mission. It was to obtain from 
the Democratic National Committee, or their representatives, an 
explicit and unequivocal declaration with reference to the World 
article. Members of the party throughout the country were at this 
moment uncertain whether the committee and leaders of the party 
had authorized or connived at the article, or whether they had deter- 
mined to abandon the ticket or not. If the Committee were not 
responsible for the article they should say so unequivocally, and at 
once. 

Mr. Tilden remarked that the Hoover dispatch signed by himself 
and Messrs. Belmont and Schell was supposed to be explicit enough. 

The Washingtonian replied that it was not; tha leaders of the 
party at Washington still believed that the Wor/d would not have 


THE CRIME OF 1868, 73 


ventured to publish such an article without consulting with the Com- 
mittee; that the dispatch had been sent too late, and that the 
Committee should end all doubt upon the matter by explicitly dics 
diating the Wor/d article. 

Mr. Tilden intimated that he did not like to make an enemy of the 
World. 

Whereupon Mr. Hoffman got up and said very emphatically that 
that was not the point. The point was that the party throughout , 
the country neeed to be unequivocally assured about the origin of 
that article so that it might be guided in the course it was to pursue. 
The gentleman from Washington was quite correct in his views and 
fully justified in his demands. Messrs. Tilden and Schell, who were 
the representatives of the Committee, should draw up and sign such 
a paper as the gentleman had suggested. 

After some further objection on the part of Mr. Tilden, who gave 
way to the Washingtonian’s suggestion with evident reluctance, it 
was agreed that the latter should draw up a dispatch addressed to 
Mr. W. F. Storey, representative of the Democratic National Com- 
mittee in Illinois, setting forth unequivocally that the Wordd article 
was without authority or, knowledge of the National Committee, or 
any of its members or representatives; that a change of front was 
out of the question; and that victory was still assured if the party 
held together. 

The Washingtonian sat down to draw the paper. As he did so, 
Col. North whispered to him, ‘‘I’ll venture to say that you will 
never carry that paper out of this room.’”’ To which the Washing- 
tonian replied with confidence: ‘‘Oh, yes, I shall get it, and when I 
do get it, I shall at once put it on the wires.” 

The Washingtonian completed the paper and handed it to Mr. 
Tilden, who made some trifling alterations in its diction and passed 
it to Mr. Schell. It met with the latter’sconcurrence. Mr. Tilden 
then signed it; then Mr. Schell signed it. Then the Washingtonian 
took it up and witha look of triumph at Col. North started toward 
the door saying: ‘‘Gentlemen, I’ll just put this on the wires and re- 
turn.” His hand was on the door knob and he was in the act of 
turning it when Mr. Tilden, running hastily around the table, (this 
was in the front reception room at the house in East Twentieth 
Street), seized him by the arm and declared the dispatch ought not to 
go out without Mr. Belmont’s name being attached toit. Mr. Belmont, 
he explained, was Chairman of the Committee, and it would be slight- 
ing him to send the dispatch forth without his signature. He knew 


74 THE CRIME OF 1868. 


that Mr. Belmont would sign it. Mr. Belmont was in Newport. He 
(Mr. Tilden) would agree to procure his signature to the dispatch 
and send it to Mr. Storey. It really must be left in his hands until 
he could see Mr. Belmont. 

What could the Washingtonian do? Mr. Tilden was not a stranger 
to him. He knew him well and confided in him. He laid the paper 
upon the table and shortly afterward the meeting broke up, with the 
express understanding that Mr. Belmont’s signature should be pro- 
cured to the dispatch by Mr. Tildenand that it should be immediately 
afterward made public by transmitting it to Mr. ah in the form 
of an official message. 

That paper never was signed by Mr. Belmont; never was published; 
and to this day the Conservative party has nothing to show that the 
World article of October 15, 1868, was unauthorized by the Com- 
mittee. The leaders of the party and the masses throughout the 
country felt that they had been betrayed, but by whom, whether 
Belmont, Tilden or Marble, they could not feel sure. In this state » 
of uncertainty and confusion the party went to the polls, leaderless 
and demoralized. Even in this condition it polled 2,648,830 votes 
for Seymour against 2,985,031 polled by the Radicals for Grant; and 
it only failed of a majority vote by 337,000 or less than 6 per cent. 
of the whole number of votes cast. This 6 percent. was the reward 
of Marble’s treachery. 

Such is the story of the Crime of 1868, so far as the writer knows 
it of his own knowledge. The connection between its various mem- 
bers is too obvious to need further comment, and the advantages 
which the European Syndicate derived from it are to be measured by 
the following entirely gratuitous act of legislation: 

‘‘In order to remove any doubt as to the purpose of the govern- 
ment to discharge all just obligations to the public creditors, and 
to settle conflicting questions and interpretations of the laws by 
virtue of which such obligations have been contracted, it is hereby 
provided and declared that the faith of the United States is solemnly 
pledged to the payment in coin, or its equivalent, of all the obliga- 
tions of the United States not bearing interest, known as United 
States notes, and of all the interest-bearing obligations of the United 
States, except in cases where the law authorizing the issue of any 
such obligation has expressly provided that the same may be paid in 
lawful money or other currency than gold or silver. But none of 
said interest-bearing obligations not already due shall be redeemed 
or paid before maturity, unless at such time United States notes 


— 





THE CRIME OF 1868. 75 


shall be convertible into coin at the option of the holder, or unless 
at such time bonds of the United States bearing a lower rate of in- 
terest than the bonds to be redeemed can be sold at par in coin. 


And the United States also solemnly pledges its faith to make pro- | 


vision at the earliest practicable period for the redemption of the 
United States notes in coin.” Act of March 78, 18609. 

This was the so-called Credit Strengthening Act of March 18, 
1869. It was passed immediately upon’ the assembling of the new 
‘Congress elected in the Fall of 1868, and was the first act passed by 
that body and signed by the new President, Grant. By virtue of 
this act the government of the United States, without any considera- 
tion whatever, improved and enhanced the eee of the bonds it had 
issued under the Act of February 25, 1862, and its sequels, which 
bonds it had sold at half price because of their sale and redeema- 
bility in greenbacks. It also, and likewise without any consideration, 
improved and enhanced the value of the greenbacks, by promising 
to redeem the same in coin, whereas when they were issued they 
were sold at half price for war supplies largely on account of their 
irredeemability in coin. 

The passage of this act was equivalent to the payment to various 
European banking houses, holders of the Five-Twenty bonds, of at 
least two hundred and seventy-five million dollars, over and above 
what they would otherwise have received in the form of interest and 
principal for the bonds which they held or controlled. It really 
amounted to more than twice as much. 

The issues settled by this treacherously procured legislation can 
never be raised again. The Five-Twenty bonds, whose terms of 
payment it altered and enhanced in value, without any consideration 
paid to the government, are now all, or nearly all, paid off. But the 
men who promoted this measure and who in order to do so cajoled 
and betrayed a great party which had generously confided its inter- 
ests to their charge, are not beyond the reach of public censure and 
reproach, 

Mr. Marble In his issue of the World dated August 24, 1874, said 
of himself: ‘‘ As the editor of a journal which he established, has 
long owned, and always conducted to maintain Democratic doctrines 
in government and which, without the assistance of National or State 
Democratic Committees, has nevertheless come to be everywhere 
esteemed as in some sense a leading organ of the Democratic party, 
he has not believed it to be consistent with that implied trust,” etc. 
He here refers with pride to his ownership of the Wor/d as of long 


~ 


76 THE CRIME OF 1868. 


standing. The readers of this treatise will know how long that 
standing had been; for according to Mr. Marble’s own confession it 
only began about the 1st of October, 1868. He also refers to its 
independence of Democratic Committees. The only Democratic 
Committee which had any ‘‘support”’ to contribute until within re- 
cent years was the Tammany Committee of New York, an organiza- 
tion which cared little for the Democratic party, so long as it could 
retain its hold upon the profits of the municipal government of that 
city. From this organization, as appears from the bills and receipts 
for advertisments, on file with the Comptroller of New York, the 
World received an ample remuneration. As to the National Demo- 
cratic Committee it had no largess to bestow upon the World, which 
had betrayed and sold it and the party to foreigners. This is the sort 
of independence of which it boasted. 

But the most important of Mr. Marble’s statements above quo- 
ted is that one wherein he says that the World had come to be every- 
where esteemed as in some sense ‘‘a leading organ of the Democratic 
party,” and admits that there was an ‘‘implied trust” in the avowal 
and acceptance of such a position. It will be remembered that in 
the interview of October 17, 1868, Mr. Marble denied that the World 
was a Democratic organ, in any sense of the word, and that it was 
under no sort of trust or obligation to support the doctrines or can- 
didates of the party. Afterwards, when he hoped his treachery 
would not transpire, or had been forgotten, he held that the World 
was a Democratic organ and as such was under an ‘‘implied trust” 
with reference to the doctrines and candidates of the party. And 
not only in his issue of August 24, 1874, but in many subsequent 
issues, he sought, and unfortunately obtained, the support and con-. 
fidence of the party, as he had sought and obtained it previous to 
his treacherous act of October 15, 1868. 


~—---—6 Ho 


77 


THE CRIME OF 1870. 


AS TOLD IN THE MEMPHIS MONETARY CONVENTION JUNE 13, 1895. 


HE Chairman, Senator Turpie, of Indiana, announced that 
Hon. Alexander Del Mar, of California, the distinguished 
writer on Money, was present and would address the Convention. 
Mr. Del Mar, who was greeted with much applause, spoke as 
follows: 

Mr. Chairman:—Amidst the conflict of monetary theories, doc- 
trines and assumptions which divide the American people—nay the 
entire civilized world to-day—lI can discern but a single principle 
upon which all parties unite. That principle is stability. Those 
who hold that like other measures the measure of value should be of 
dimensions prescribed by law; those who would leave such dimensions 
to the chances of mining discovery, the vicissitudes of war, or the 
caprices of fashion; those who are willing to trust the government 
with the regulation of money; those who have no faith in the 
virtue or prudence of congress and demand a metallic pledge behind 
each fraction of the monetary measure; those who regard the whole 
number of dollars as the measure of value; those who regard the 
material of each separate dollar as the true measure of valué; 
those who regard money as a legal institution, as well as those who 
view it only as so much metal—all these alike agree in the cardinal 
principle that a monetary system, if it is to be just and equitable in 
its operation, should be stable. It should afford a reasonable assur- 
ance to the buyer, the seller, the debtor, the creditor, the producer, 
the consumer, the annuitant, the pensioner: and the wage-earner, 
that it will work no essential, no violent, no revolutionary, rise or 
fall of prices, so that men may buy and sell, contract, undertake and 
plan for the future upon a more or less assured and enduring basis. 

This principle, so manifestly just, has obtained not only the assent 
of extreme partisans on all sides of the present heated controversy, 
but it is laid down by the most eminent jurists who have devoted 


48 THE CRIME OF 1870, 


their attention to this great institution of social life, it is laid down 
by Vattel, Grotius, Puffendorf, Montesquieu, Bodin, Dumoulin, 
Grimaudet; indeed, by all the great modern writers on the princi- 
ples of law. 

It it because I am profoundly convinced that no institution can 
enjoy a permanent footing in this country unless it is founded upon 
principles of equity, it is because I believe that any system of money 
which does not point to substantial stability of prices is destined to 
speedy overthrow, that I stand here to-day to support so far as my 
feeble abilities permit the demand for the restoration of the ancient 
coinage laws of the Republic. 

At no time in the history of the world have such enormous, such 
inequitable, such widespread, I may almost say cosmic disturbances 
of prices, such unforeseeable and undeserved changes of opportunity 
and fortune occurred as have occurred since the evil day—now some 
thirty years ago—when the coinage of silver began to be checked 
throughout the civilized world. 

The fact—which nobody has questioned—that more than half of 
the combined circulation of all the States of the Occident consists 
of legal tender paper notes; the fact, which all admit, that over 95 
per cent of all the exchanges of the world are transacted not with 
money, whether of metal or paper, but with mere orders for money, 
such as checks and bills of exchange—these facts, together with 
others, prove that metallic coins, though made of both silver and of 
gold, are quite inadequate to justly measure the parity of exchanges, 
so that the coins have to be eked out not only with papermoney, but 
also—and still more largely—with orders and promises of money, 
which being limited in circulation to one or two persons and slow of 
movement at that, have to be continually drawn, destroyed and re- 
drawn. In short, the growth of commerce during this century of 
steam and electricity has been so enormous that the equity of ex- 
changes has come to rest chiefly upon paper money and private 
orders for paper money, the latter affecting to be exchangeable or 
promising to be exchanged on demand for coins of gold or silver. 
Defective and dangerous as such systems have proved, no satisfac- 
tory substitute for them has yet been accepted; and like many other 
institutes inherited from the past, we have been content to patch 
them up and make them last as long as possible. 

What now shall be thought of the man or the men who thirty 
years ago deliberately destroyed one-half of the scant support upon 
which the stupendous superstructure of the world’s commerce, con- 


THE CRIME OF 1870, 79 


tracts, and expectations depends? And what now shall be done to 
further patch that tottering system which—like Dr. Oliver Wendell 
Holmes’s one-horse chaise—threatens to fall to pieces altogether? 

Concerning this last suggestion you need no guidance from the © 
mere Historian of money; your minds are already made up; your 
verdict is determined—the law must be restored. Concerning the 
history of the demonetization, I am here to unfold it to you, because 
in it is contained the refutation of those false, venomous and traitor- 
ous cries of ‘‘interested motives,” ‘‘ dishonest money” and the like, 
with which the friends of restoration have been assailed. 

The Monetary Commission of 1876, with which I was connected, 
reported that the Acts of 1873 were, one of them, passed surreptiti- 
ously, and the other upon false or erroneous assurances. ‘This has 
since been vehemently denied. I am going to show you not only 
that the Commission was right, but that these acts were the issue of 
European intrigue and precedent. 

At the period of this legislation the ratio of value at which silver 
and gold were purchased and coined at the French mints was 15 1-2 
weights for 1; at the mints of the United States 16 to 1; In conse- 
quence of this difference (about 3 per cent) those who had silver to 
coin sent it to Paris, rather than Philadelphia, San Francisco or New 
Orleans. Had the opposition to the coinage of dollars in the two 
metals and the preference by creditors of the government for one 
metal over the other been of American origin, the one metal chosen 
would inevitably have been silver, because in fact the silver dollar 
was worth 3 per cent more than the gold one, and because the fund- 
holders who notoriously promoted and supported the legislation of 
1873 would no more have preferred gold dollars then, than they 
would silver dollars now. But in France, indeed, in Europe gener- 
ally, whose mints and markets commonly followed the vast coinages 
of France, the gold and silver coins of like denominations were of 
precisely equal value. Hence to the European holder of American 
bonds in 1863-4 it made no difference whether he was paid in gold or 
silver coins, provided—and this was the point essentially important 
to his interest and avidity—provided that the debtor was deprived 
of the option of paying in coins of the other metal. The preference 
of gold was certainly not American, because at the American mint 
ratio gold dollars, when melted down, were only worth 97 cents. It 
was therefore of European origin. We shall presently see why these 
‘‘cheaper”’ dollars were preferred to silver ones. 

Under the Code Napoleon it was explicitly laid down that all 


80 THE CRIME OF £870. 


debts, taxes and contracts for sums of money, no matter in what 
other terms expressed, were legally and equitably dischargeable in 
the current money of like denominations upon the day of payment. 
This principle came down from the Roman Commonwealth; it was 
preserved by Paulus in the Digest; it was upheld by all the juris- 
consults of the Empire and of the various provinces and kingdoms 
into which the Empire afterwards split; it was supported with great 
emphasis and erudition by the Privy Council, in the celebrated case 
of the Mixed Moneys, and it was maintained by the United States 
Supreme Court in the great cases which were adjudicated by Chief 
Justices Chase and a full bench. 

At the time when the necessities of our government compelled it 
to issue hundreds—nay, almost thousands of millions of 6 per cent 
and 5 per cent bonds, with interest payable in ‘‘coins,” the French 
Court of Cassation promulgated a decision in perfect accordance not 
only with the entire range of legal authority, but also with the Code 
Napoleon, to the effect that on this subject no man could contract 
himself out of the law; in short, that contracts for money were 
equitably dischargeable in the current money of the day of payment. 
This decision alarmed the European holders of American bonds. 
‘‘What might not those shrewd, those progressive Americans do 
with respect to the interest on these bonds, which was payable in 
‘‘coins ?” Perhaps they would strike coins of debased gold, like 
the ancient Athenians, or of pewter and gun-metal, like the princes 
of the house of Stuart, or plated brass, like the petty lords of 
modern Germany. Would they not be justified by law, by history, 
by authority, by precedent, by the decision so recently rendered in 
the French court of Cassation? Most assuredly.” 

There was but one way to avert this financial calamity. This was 
to demonetise one of the precious metals, and fix the standard of the 
other. But which metal should be demonetized? Gold? ‘‘Oh, no, 
the American government would never consent to that, because it 
would oblige them to pay in silver dollars, which, under the opera- 
tion of their own laws, as influenced by our (the French mint) law, 
are worth 3 per cent more than gold ones. ‘Therefore, let us en- 
deavor to demonetize silver. ‘To us it makes no difference; to the 
Americans it is a gain of three percent. Let us bribe them with 
this three per cent to surrender their option of the metals. All 
doubt as to kind of payment being then removed, our American 
bonds, purchased at forty or fifty cents on the dollar, will rise to par 
and over. A la mort, l’argent !” 


THE CRIME OF 1870, 81 


At that time there were 1,000 to 1,500 millions of American gov- 
ernment bonds in Europe, or held on European account. The in- 
ception of this project, which soon developed into an active intrigue, 
therefore stood to win 600 to 1,000 million dollars. 

Such were the circumstances that gave rise to the resolutions 
adopted by the Latin Monetary Union of 1865. The original propo- 
sition emanated in Belgium: it was grafted upon that movement for 
the unitization of weights and measures, the dissemination of the me- 
trical and decimal systems and other ‘‘fads” which were urged 
throughout Europe by numerous societies with respectable and influ- 
ential followings. ‘The members of these societies (not the leaders) 
were like the fat sheep which one sometimes sees marked for 
slaughter. Their single function in life is to look plump and wait 
for the butcher. The butcher is usually the practical politician; in 
this case it was the practical financier. 

The Monetary Union of 1865 was the beginning of that scheme of 
reckless avidity and dark intrigue which in the course of a few years 
destroyed one half of the metallic basis of money, plunged the com- 
mercial world into bankruptcy and pledged it to conditions commer- 
cially impossible to fulfill and politically dangerous to endure. These 
conditions menace the peace of the world. I do not plead for retri- 
bution, but for justice. Let the fundholder be paid in gold. Heis 
not the same one who duped and betrayed us in 1868 and 1873, but 
his assignee, an innocent third party, upon whose title there is no 
stain of fraud. Let him be paid in gold. So far as the present 
fundholders are concerned the mischief is done, and it cannot be 
equitably repaired. But as for posterity whose affairs we are pinning 
down to the capricious and inadequate limits of a single metal: as 
for the future stability of contracts, which twenty-five years of 
catastrophic experience should convince us cannot be secured by 
means of gold money, I say let us at once restore the ancient law. 
‘‘'The way to resume is to resume !” ' 

From 1865 to 1870 the fundholding syndicate into whose hands it 
is quite evident this intrigue had now fallen, was incessant in its op- 
erations. Numerous conventions under its patronage were held in 
France, Belgium and Germany: its influence is plainly discernible in 
the treacherous defection of certain party leaders during the Ameri- 
can presidential election of 18687; in the gratuitous ‘‘Credit- 

'The Democratic party on the eve of the Presidential election of 1868, when al- 


most certain victory awaited it, was betrayed by Martin Marble, editor of the New 
York World, 


82 THE CRIME OF 1870, 


strengthening ” act of 1869; in the appropriation clause of Boutwell’s 
needless Fifteen Hundred Million funding bill; and especially in that 
surreptitious and scandalous alteration of the British Mint Code of 
1870, which furnished the immediate example, precedent and justifi- 
cation for the analogous alteration of our own Mint Code, namely, the 
alteration which demonetized silver and threw the commercial world 
into bankruptcy. It is to the circumstances connected with this 
alteration of the British Mint Code that I now ask your especial 
attention. 

The Mint law of 1816, section 9, the law which closed the British 
mints to the private and unlimited coinage of silver, whilst it opened 
them to the private and unlimited coinage of gold, left it in the 
power of the Crown at any time (by and with the advice of the 
Privy Council), to substantially reverse such policy. In other 
words, down to the year 1870 the Sovereign of Great Britain had 
the power by proclamation to reopen the mints to the private and 
unlimited coinage of silver. 

This provision of law appeared in an amended form in section 9 
on page 3, lines 14 to 20, of the Mint bill of 1870, next to be men- 
tioned; but it is nowhere to be found in the amended bill, nor in the 
statute into which it was erected, Following is the provision of 1816, 
as amended in the original Mint bill of 1870: 


Section 9, lines 14 to 20: ‘‘Where, after the date in that behalf 
fixed by a proclamation under this act, any person or body brings to 
the mint any silver bullion, such bullion shall be assayed and coined 
and delivered out to such person at the rate of 62 shillings for every 
5,760 grains imperial weight, or 373.24195 grammes metric weight, 
of silver bullion of standard fineness so brought, in whatever denom- 
ination the same is coined.”’ 


On February 10, 1870, the bill containing this provision was 
brought into the Commons by the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
(Robert Lowe) and Mr. Stansfeld. Its professed object was ‘‘to 
consolidate and amend the law relating to the coinage and Her 
Majesty’s mint.” In moving for leave to introduce it, Mr. Lowe 
said its objects were merely to ‘‘consolidate the rules and regula- 
lions of the mint” and abolish the useless office of mint-master, and 
thus save £3,500 a year to the nation. Upon these assurances the 
bill was read for the first time and put upon its passage. The bill 
not only contained the provisions above cited; it prescribed the 
manner and form in which this privilege of silver coinage might be 
exercised. Section 12 provided that ‘‘it shall be lawful for Her 


THE CRIME OF 1870. 83 


Majesty, with the advice of the Privy Council, from time to time by 
proclamation, to do ail or any of the following matters, namely”’ 
* * * (clause 7) ‘‘to regulate any matters relative to the coinage 
and the mint which are not provided for by this act.” | 

These were the only provisions in the bill relating to that royal 
prerogative of silver coinage which had been reserved in the Act 56, 
George III., c. 68. It is evident that in order to effectually destroy 
this prerogative, both section 9g, lines 14 to 20, and section 12, 
clause 7, of the bill of February 10, 1870, had to be altered. The 
former provision was a restriction or limitation of the latter; there- 
fore its repeal (by itself) instead of destroying, would have enlarged, 
the royal prerogative. This consideration made it necessary, if the 
prerogative was to be destroyed, to deal with both clauses; and this 
is precisely what was done. ‘The second reading took place Febru- 
ary 25, 1870, when after a brief discussion, during which no inten- 
tion was disclosed of destroying or curtailing the royal prerogative 
of silver coinage, the bill was committed. When the bill emerged 
from committee (March ro), that portion of clause 9, namely, lines 
14-20, which might have opened the mints to the coinage of silver, had 
disappeared altogether; and no mention of this elimination appears 
in the debates reported by Hansard, who simply says (Vol. 199, col. 
1730): ‘‘Clauses (or sections) 8 to 10, inclusive, added.”’ 

In section 12, clause 7, the following italicized words were in- 
serted, making the clause read as follows: ‘‘To regulate any matters 
relative to the coinage and mint wzthin the present prerogative of the 
crown which are not provided for by thisact.” Theitalicized words 
worked an entire change of thelaw. On March 11 this bill was ‘‘ con- 
sidered as amended” (no discussion),and on March 14 it passed its 
third reading, without discussion. 

There was another and very important alteration made, one which 
destroyed the power of the Crown to make foreign coins legal ten- 
der (this included the Indian rupee) but for the present I propose 
merely to deal with the alteration which destroyed the royal pre- 
rogative as to the silver coinage of Great Britain. 

When it was up for second reading February 25, Mr.Lowe said 
that, with the exception of the economy mentioned, the bill propos- 
ed no alteration of the law, and, seemingly as an apology for its 
length, added that ‘‘Her Majesty has very large prerogatives in 
the matterof money and if they were not recited in the bill it 
might be supposed that we were anxious to impose limitations up- 
on them. * * * The Queen has now, I apprehend, by prerogative, 


84 THE CRIME OF 1870. 


a power to introduce into any of her dominions any coin she pleases, 
* * * although such power could only be exercised by procla- 
mation by the Privy Council.”” When it was up in commitee, March 
10, Mr. Lowe again said that the object of the bill was not to alter, 
but merely to ‘‘perfect” the law; yet, without discussion and with- 
out hesitation, he accepted amendments which not only altered the 
law, but altered it fundamentally and opened the door to all those 
consequences which I allude to elsewhere. 


In the House of Lords, on second reading, March 18, the Mar- 
quis of Landsdowne explained that the bill made ‘‘ no innovation of 
any kind, no new principle was introduced in the bill,” etc. Upon 
these assurances it was read and committed. When motion was 
made, March 22, to go into committee on this bill, Lord Kinnaird 
remarked that it had ‘‘ not received due consideration; for it passed 
through its various stages in the other House after midnight, and 
amendments were introduced by members who represented establishments 
interested in the question.” The noble Marquis of Landsdowne had 
stated, on the second reading, that it contained no innovation and 
no new principle.” The Marquis of Landsdowne thereupon rejoined 
that he had said it contained no zmfortant innovation, with the ex- 
ception of the clause transferring the mastership of the mint. 
‘¢ But,” replied Lord Kinnaird, ‘‘I contend that it contains very zm- 
portant alterations.” 


Yet, from beginning to end, neither in the House of Commons, 
the House of Lords, nor in the committees of either house, was any 
intimation made of any purpose to curtail the Queen’s prerogative 
of silver coinage, nor did any discussion take place on the subject. 
Lord Kinnaird was the only person in either house who made more 
than trivial objections, and as to his objections, they were insuffici- 
ent to stay the progress of the measure, which partly on this day 
and partly on March 24 went through the lifeless ceremony of its 
passage through the Lords. When Lord Kinnaird uttered his last. 
protest, he said he believed that ‘‘ dust was still thrown by certain 
parties into the eyes of the deputy master of the mint—not gold 
dust, for this went into their pockets.” But as it is evident that he 
had not the faintest suspicion of what was really going on, it yet re- 
mains to be seen into whose eyes the dust had gathered. On the 
following day, March 25, the bill was read in the Lords a third 


?This is an obvious allusion to the Bank of England, which, it will be remembered 
is a private institution with a national name. 


THE CRIME OF 1870, 85 


time and passed without discussion. On April 4 it received the 
Royal assent and thus became law. 

Within a fortnight after its enactment in England, this Mint bill, 
which, it was alleged, contained ‘‘no innovations and no new prin- 
ciples,” was in the hands of the Comptroller of the (paper) Currency 
at Washington, Mr. John Jay Knox, a young man and a new man, 
entirely ignorant of coinage, and one whose office had no connec- 
tion with coinage or the mints.* There it became the basis of a bill 
which purported, like its prototype, to be merely a codification of 
the existing laws relating to the coinage, but which, also like its 
prototype, really curtailed and destroyed the ancient prerogative of 
the State with regard to the coinage of silver and the making of 
silver coins (national or foreign) legal tenders for the payment of 
debts. Within the space of a few years similar legislation against 
silver money was introduced by the same agencies and enacted in 
the principal states of the Occident; and to-day all the nations of 
the West and all the people of Europe and America, both born and 
unborn, are committed not only to the payment of past obligations, 
but also to the conduct of future transactions, upon the basis of a 
stock of gold coins which at the present time does not exceed 
£800,000,000 sterling and which is chiefly deposited in banking es- 
tablishments, lable to be controlled and, as many people suspect, 
actually subject to the control of a private syndicate of British and 
Continental financiers. 

Gentlemen of the Convention! You have now heard the story of 
this sordid conspiracy. It began long before the American silver 
mines became productive. Its active phase arose out of the issue of 
five-twenty bonds and the decision of the French Court of Cassa- 
tion. It gave rise to the Latin Monetary Union. It precipitated 
the demonetization of silver in Germany and other states. It sur- 
reptitiously altered the British Mint Code and in a similar manner 
and by similar means it secretly and scandalously altered the Amer- 
ican Mint Code. It munificently rewarded all those who promoted 
its objects. It mercilessly attacked all who opposed them. It 
robbed this country of hundreds of millions. It influenced its poli- 
tics and it still influences them. It has grown rich enough to lend 
fifteen millions to the English banks, eighty millions to Italy, ten 
millions to Chili, and two hundred millions each to Austria and the 
United States. It controls our foreign exchanges. It has already 


’The original bill had been in his hands from the outset of the intrigue in England. 


86 . THE CRIME OF 1870. 


plunged the commercial world into a long train of disasters and 
stands ready to repeat the achievement whenever it will pay to do 
so. Do you want any more of this? (Cries of No! No!) Then let 
us put an end toit. Let us restore the law, and, if anything further 
is needed to regulate our monetary system, so that it shall serve, 
instead of control our commercial prosperity, let that, also, be done, 
not by entangling alliances with other nations, not under the guid- 
ance of hired and traitorous newspapers, owned by foreign syndi- 
cates, but according to American ideas, under the Constitution, and 
subject only to the principles of justice, and the immortal canons of 
the Civil and Common law. (Loud and long continued applause.) 








oOo 


87 


THE CRIME OF 1873. 


HFN the civil war ended, the federal debt was about 

$2,800,000,000; the debts of the various states, townships 

and municipalities, about $1,400,000,000; of railways and canals 

about $2,500,000,000; and of other corporations about $300, 000,000; 
together about $7,000,000, 000. 

Between a fourth and a third of this sum was owing to investors 
in Europe, who had lent or advanced it, in paper dollars, which cost 
them on the average about half a dollar each in gold or silver coins. 
An equal proportion had been advanced by American capitalists on 
similar terms. The balance was advanced before the war, or else 
before the paper currency depreciated; and was therefore lent in 
coins or their equivalent. Leaving this portion of the debt out of 
view, it is probably near the mark to say that at the close of the 
civil war there were owing nearly $5,000,000,000, which cost the 
lenders (Europeans and Americans), about half that sum in coins. 

The whole of this debt was payable, under the act of February 25, 
1862, in greenbacks; the interest on a portion of it was payable in 
coins of gold or silver. 

The first move of the lenders after the war closed was to open a 
newspaper war upon the paper money which they had themselves 
lent to the government. The greenbacks, it was contended, were 
‘‘dishonest”” dollars; indeed, not really dollars at all, only worth- 
less, disreputable rags, a disgrace to civilization, disseminators of 
fraud and disease, etc. This question was fought in the President- 
ial campaign of 1868, in which, by referring to the newspapers of 
the day, it will be seen that the writer hereof bore no inactive part. 
As the election day approached every sign indicated the triumph of 
Governor Seymour, the champion of greenbacks, and the defeat of 
General Grant, the champion of coins. All of a sudden, on the eve 
of election, and without a note of warning, the then trusted organ 
of the Democratic party, to wit, the Mew York World, edited by 
Manton Marble, but owned, as it was commonly believed, by Au- 


88 THE CRIME OF 1873. 


gust Belmont, hauled down its flag, deserted the ticket on the eve 
of election, and left nearly two million voters to the effects of 
treachery, panic and disorder. 7 

The first fruit of this nefarious transaction was the passage of a 
so-called ‘‘Credit Strengthening Act,’’ dated March 18, 1869, by 
which the United States government pledged itself to pay the prin- 
cipal as well as the interest, of its paper debt, in gold or silver cozns. 
In other words, without any consideration whatever, it undertook to 
pay for every paper dollar which it.had borrowed, a gold or silver 
dollar, of the long-established weight and fineness; and by this act 
and its subsequent action, it compelled all indebted persons and cor- 
porations to do the like. 

Having by these means secured to themselves the payment of a 
whole metal dollar for each 4alf of a metal dollar advanced to the 
government, thus clearing cent-per-cent profit at a single bound, the 
conspirators next-attempted to double the value or purchasing power 
of such metal dollars, by means of destroying one-half of them, to 
wit, the silver ones. | 

The following is a brief account of their operations: At that time 
and for several years previously, a government commission had been 
occupied in the work of revising and codifying the statues of the 
United States. The Revision Commissioners being lawyers, and not 
financiers, merchants, nor metallurgists, were not familiar with the 
technical branches of administration; therefore they made it a prac- 
tice to visit the executive departments and consult with the principal 
officers concerning the practical interpretation and administration of 
the laws. When they reached the Mint Bureau, its principal officer 
had already in his hands a proposed codification of the coinage laws, 
the model for which had been forwarded to him by certain friends or 
agents of the Bank of England in London. 

This new American Mint Code apparently embodied all the existing 
laws on the subject, nay, it even purported to follow their very 
language, and to blend them all into an harmonious whole; but such 
appearance was deceptive. This deception is not charged upon the 
Director of the Mint (since dead), but upon the men who prepared 
and placed the codification in his hands, some of whomare still living 
and who will doubtless take pleasure in reading this communication. 

The old law (not the proposed codification) made it the duty of the 
Director of the Mint to receive deposits of either gold or silver; to 
coin such metal into dollars—the silver ones to contain exactly six- 
teen times as much metal as the gold ones—and to return the same 


THE CRIME OF 1873. 89 


to the depositor; and it declared all such dollars to be money of the 
United States and legal tenders for all purposes and to any amount. 
The public debt was made payable under the act of March 18, 1869, 
in such dollars, whether of silver or gold. The proposed codification 
(not the law) dropped the silver dollar. It did not demonetize it, 
but by omitting to include it in the various coins which the Mint 
Director was authorized to strike, it was rendered unlawful and im- 
practicable for him to strike any more of them. 

As to the means by which this modification was palmed upon the 
Director of the Mint and afterwards—that is to say, before the Re- 
vision Commissioners dealt with it—how it was palmed upon Congress, 
the subject has been frequently dealt with already. The dupes who 
afterwards attempted to defend it, utterly failed and are dead; the 
men who worked the trick are some of them still living and may yet 
be named and impeached. 

The act (embodying the codification) when passed, was not read in 
both Houses at length, and it is notorious that this transcendant 
change in the monetary system of the country, affecting the most 
vital and widespread interests, was carried through without the 
knowledge or observation of the people. 

It was neither demanded by the resolutions of public meetings or 
political conventions, nor asked for in petitions from electors. As 
paper money was the actual currency of the country at that time, a 
coinage act was not likely to attract general attention. Whileit was 
pending, the press of the country was entirely unobservant or silent. 
After it passed, no notice was taken of it for more than two years 
afterwards. If it had been known that any such vital question as 
the demonetization of silver was lurking in the bill it would have 
aroused the most widespread discussion throughout the country; as 
is shown by the present contest upon remonetizing it; which is only 
the same question reversed, and which is likely to dominate all other 
public questions until it is settled. The most striking evidence, 
perhaps, of the public inattention to the effect of the coinage act of 
1873, is the fact that President Grant, who signed it, had no knowl- 
edge of what it really accomplished in relation to the demonetization 
of silver, and was still uninformed about it so late as October 3, 1873, 
as is proved by his letter of that date to Mr. Cowdrey. In this letter 
he wonders why silver is not brought to the mints and coined into 
money! If the President of the United States, in daily intercourse 
with the public men of the country, had failed to hear during cer- 
tainly seven or eight months that the laws no longer permitted money 


go THE CRIME OF 1873. 


to be coined from silver, it must be inferred that ignorance on the 
subject was general and profound. 

It has since been contended by the apologists for demonetization 
that the word ‘‘dollar”’ was omitted from the enumeration of silver 
coins in the codification, because the silver dollar had lost value. 
On the contrary, the French mint was at that time paying about 
three per cent. more for silver bullion than the American mints; and 
for this reason, and as a matter of fact, the American silver dollar 
, was at a premium of three percent in American gold dollars. It has 
also been pleaded that but comparatively few American silver dollars 
had ever been coined and circulated; but this plea omits from view 
the vast number of Spanish silver dollars and of American halves 
and quarters which were coined and made full legal tender under the 
American law for two-thirds of a century and which in fact amply 
filled the metallic circulation of this country. 

It has also been pleaded that the American silver dollar was dropped 
because Germany had demonetized silver. But this is not true. It 
was dropped by the adoption of the New Mint Code of February 12, 
1873, whereas Germany did not demonetize silver until July 9, 1873. 
It has also been pleaded that the silver dollar was dropped because 
of the vast quantities of silver produced from the Comstock lode; 
whereas, in fact, of the entire product of the lode one-half in value 
was of gold. 

All these and other pleas, subterfuges and excuses were invented 
after the deed was done. ‘The silver dollar was dropped purely and 
simply to enhance the value of the gold dollar, and thus to double 
the debt of the American people. That was the motive and there 
was no other motive. The proof of it is that the very same men (I 
do not merely mean the same class of men, I mean the identical in- 
dividuals) who betrayed their party in 1868 and who doubled the 
public indebtedness by promoting the act of March 18, 1869, assisted 
to again double the debt, by promoting the surreptitious mint codifi- 
cation act of February 12, 1873, and the further surreptitious act of 
June, 1874. I quote from the official report of the United States 
Monetary Commission of 1876, page go: 

‘‘The demonetization of silver coined and uncoined was affirma- 
tively completed in June, 1874, by the following section (3,586) of 
the Revised Statutes: ‘The silver coins of the United States shall 
be a legal tender at their nominal value for any amount not exceed- 
ing five dollars in any one payment.’ No law was ever passed by 
Congress of which this language can be considereda ‘revision.’ The 


THE CRIME OF 1873. Or 


Revised Statutes were enacted in bulk. They were intended to bea 
revision merely of the existing laws, without change or introduction 
of new matter, and Congress was assured by its Committee on Re- 
vision that zo new matter had been introduced into them. It was not 
possible for the members of the committee to have personally verified 
the exact accuracy of the revision. They must necessarily have re- 
lied upon assurances given to them by the persons actually engaged 
in the work. [These were the codification or Revision Commissioners. 
previously mentioned.| Whoever may be responsible for this error 
in the Revised Statutes, the ancient money of the country, instead 
of being /egzslated out of existence by Congress, was revised out of 
existence.” 

It will be seen that the legislation of 1865-’74 was no ‘academic 
experiment,” but a sordid crime, hatched abroad and brought into 
this country by the treacherous people who governed the utterances. 
of the New York World. Every one of the conspirators engaged in 
the commission of this crime suddenly acquired riches. Some of 
them have since delivered to admiring audiences long dissertations 
on academic finance, and one of them has been distinguished by an 
unsuspecting President of the United States with high marks of 
public preferment. 


roe ()O) Qunr ene 


g2 


EQUITABLE MONEY. 


Reply of Hon. Alexander Del Mar to Prof. Thorold Rogers’ address delivered in 
the London Chamber of Commerce, March 20th, 1890. (From the /ixancial and 
Mining Record, April tgth, 1890.) 


SPECIAL meeting of the Chamber of Commerce was held in 
iN the Council-Room, East Cheap, on March z2oth, 18go, at 4.30 
P.M. Sir John Lubbock, M. P., presided. Among those present 
were Mr. David Howard, chairman of the Council, Sir Vincent 
Kennet-Barrington, Sir John Coode, deputy chairman, Mr. Herman 
Schmidt, author of ‘‘ Tates Cambist,’’ and numerous other dis- 
tinguished gentlemen. 

Prof. J. E. Thorold Rogers, author of ‘‘ Agriculture and Prices 
during the Middle Ages,”’ ‘‘ A Manual of Political Economy,” etc., 
read a paper on ‘‘ Facts illustrating the epoch during which a 
double standard was legal tender in Great Britain, 1759—-81.’’ The 
cards of admission to the Chamber contained the following notice: 
‘‘It is not proposed to enter into the metallic controversy but to 
deal with the facts as established by past experience. It is, there- 
fore, desired that those taking part in the discussion will confine 
themselves to facts more than theories.”’ 

Prof. Rogers, who was received with applause, occupied about 
an hour, and said in effect: 

He had chosen the period in question because previous to it, from 1714, the govern- 
ment had practically adopted asingle gold standard, by overvaluing gold in the coin- 
age: and that at about the end of it, strictly speaking in 1774, Parliament passed an 
act limiting the legal tender of silver coins to £25. The double standard was in fact 
a Parliamentary experiment which was tried during three-quarters of the 18th cen- 
tury, doubted during its continuance, and finally abandoned as unworkable. The 
period 1759-81 comprised 23 years of this period. He had collected from the news- 
papers of the period the prices of gold and silver bullion, under the respective heads 
of foreign gold, standard gold bars, Spanish silver coin and standard silver bars. 
Altogether he presented nearly 2,000 different quotations, He had not averaged 
them for each year, because he thought that statistical averages were misleading. and 


that each one of these quotations ought to be studied by itself. It would be instruc- 
tive to work them out. He found an excuse for the fullness of his evidence in the 


EQUITABLE MONEY, 93 


wish that in case the Chamber discussed the figures, they should have all the facts be- 
fore them and added: 

‘* Now what did these exhaustive facts prove? They proved how seldom the mar- 
ket price of bullion coincided with the English mint prices and therefore what an 
utter failure the double standard has been. The double standard was merely a plausi- 
ble hypothesis, an economical generality; and the proposals of the Bi-Metallic league: 
of the present time are an entirely new departure in the theory of currency. The 
adoption of their views would make a serious addition to all business risks. I donot 
doubt the good faith of those who believe that government regulation of the two: 
metals has induced uniformity of value; I only question the extent of their informa- 
tion. 

“Out of my protracted researches into prices I have had constant occasion to repu- 
diate conclusions drawn by eminent men for whose abilities and integrity I have the 
sincerest respect, who would have arrived at very different conclusions, if they had 
possessed the evidence which I have had the good fortune to collect and that at no 
little pains and expense. Ihave put a specimen of such evidence before you. 

“The ratio of value between silver and gold embodied in the mint price of these 
metals during the period under review was 15.07 to 1. Inthe bullion market the ratio 
at certain dates in 1763 was 14.37 to 14.66; in 1764-5 it was 14.98; in 1772 it was 
14.12 to 14.42; in 1778-9 it was 15.07 and in 1781 it was 13.54. Generally speaking 
silver was at a premium over the mint price. These figures and calculations are 
essential to the interpretation of the situation. Debtors will inevitably pay in the 
cheapest metal. The attempt on the part of England to establish a legal proportion 
between gold and silver was a total failure. 

‘* The existing monetary system of England is a gradual development; it has no 
parallel in the civilized world; and it smoothly and successfully carries on a system of 
trade, vast beyond computation. It sprang from sagacity and is based upon a well- 
grounded confidence. One might well hesitate before tampering with such a fabric.” 
(Applause.) 


Mr. DEL Mar rising to reply, spoke rapidly and without notes as 
follows: ‘‘ That the Chamber could scarcely fail to be impressed 
with the enormous industry of Prof. Rogers in collecting the quota- 
tions of gold and silver bullion which he had presented to them (ap- 
plause). However, he could not help expressing regret that the 
Professor’s exertions had been so protracted and his pains and ex- 
pense so great; for he might have saved them all. The statistics 
which he claims to have rescued from the columns of ancient and 
obscure newspapers will be found printed in all of the following 
modern works: 1st, ‘‘ An Inquiry on National Currency,” by Robert 
Mushet, of his Majesty’s Mint, London, 1811; 2nd, ‘‘ Executive 
Document, No. 117, First Session, Twenty-first Congress of the 
United States of America;” and 3rd, ‘‘ A History of the Precious 
Metals” by Alex. Del Mar, London, 1880. These works were all 
to be found in the British Museum Library, where the Professor had 
toiled so long upon the London Courant and Lloyds Evening Post. 


94 EQUITABLE MONEY. 


What is more, they all gave those annual average prices of bullion 
which the Professor has affected to despise, but without the aid of 
which the speaker need hardly remark, life was too short to test 
the merits of the contention to which they had been invited. 
(Laughter. ) 

‘‘Now, what did these quotations convey, not the quotations 
merely, of twenty-three years selected by Professor Rogers, but the 
whole period from 1710 to the latest date mentioned by him. Let 
me run them over rapidly for you. 


Table showing the average Decennial ratio of value in London between gold and 
silver bullion 1710 to 1760 and the average Annual ratio, 1760 to 1774.* 


Period. Ratio. Period, Ratio, Period. Ratio. Period. Ratio. 
I7O0I-10 I5 27 1761 I3 94 1768 14 58 1775 14 62 
I71I-20 I5 15 1762 14 63 1769 14 45 1776 14 34 
1720-30 15 09 1763 14 71 1770 14 35 1777 14 04 
1731-40 15 07 1764 14 QI 1771 14 36 1778 14 34 
1741-50 14 93 1765 14 69 1772 14 19 1779 14 89 
1751-60 14 56 1766 14 41 1773 14 73 1780 14 43 
1760 14 29 1767 14 45 1774 15 05 1781 13 33 


*Calculated chiefly from sales of Spanish and other foreign coins and from the foreign exchanges. 
‘The decennial averages by Mr. R. H. G. Palgrave in Rep. Royal Com. on Depression of Trade, 1886; 
the annual averages from ‘‘ Del Mar’s History of the Precious Metals,”’ p. 252. 


‘¢From the remarkable regularity of these quotations, it is evident 
that there was some cause behind which governed them. That 
cause I will presently endeavor to point out. Meanwhile, let us 
consider the conditions under which this discussion has been in- 
vited. 

‘*In the first place, no notice has been given of what was intended 
to be argued, beyond what is conveyed by the card of admission. 
In the second place, this card asks us not to discuss the lecturer’s 
theory, but rather to confine ourselves to the facts which he pro- 
poses to adduce. ‘This looks too much like peppering your guest 
with a concealed weapon after you have got him to tie his own 
hands. : 

‘* What has the Professor himself brought into this discussion? Has 
he confined himself to facts and avoided controversial theories? 
Not at all. On the contrary, he has gone back 150 years to select 
certain market prices, which he appears to suppose had never been 
collected before and would, therefore, not be questioned now. 
Upon this ocean of ancient figures he has floated a dozen questiona- 
ble currency theories. The very title of his paper launches several 
of them. It is a theory, not a fact, that a double standard was 
ever legal tender in Great Britain; it is a theory, not a fact, that it 
was legal tender, during the particular years 1759-81; and it is a 


EQUITABLE MONEY. 95 


theory, not a fact, that the statistics of Professor Rogers illustrate 
this epoch fairly, or illustrate it at all. Indeed, the very term 
‘standard’ in the sense in which he has employed it, involves a theory. 
Properly speaking, standard relates to the degree of fineness of | 
coins, as the Sterling or Easterling standard, meaning eleven- 
twelfths fine. Prof. Rogers erroneously uses it to mean the kind of 
metal or metals of which coins are made; and by averring that a 
double standard was legal tender he advances the theory that gold 
and silver bullion was legal tender ‘in the 18th century; which is 
not a fact; coins were and are legal tender; money was and is legal 
tender; but not bullion. You might own a stack of bullion as high 
as St. Pauls and yet be unable to pay a debt of a single pound ster- 
ling with it. It would be quite competent for your creditor to re- 
fuse it and demand money. None of Prof. Rogers’ figures are 
facts, but merely inferences of prices and ratios founded upon quo- 
tations of foreign exchanges and sales of foreign coins. 

‘‘ This confusion of thought and the misuse of nummulary terms 
here alluded to, is distinctly of modern and recent growth. Thou- 
sands of books have been written on the subject of money, but in 
none of them, previous to the 17th century, so far as I am aware, 
was money ever confused with metals, or metals with money. 
Metals are the product of God; money is the invention of man. 
There is no difficulty whatever to distinguish them. Early in the 
17th century the King of Spain, after deducting for the Royal 
Treasury a quinto, or fifth, from the production of the precious 
metals in America, saw fit to open the Government mints to the 
coinage of all bullion into money without charge to the depositors. 
In effect, this was a standing offer. on the part of the Government 
to purchase an unlimited quantity of tax-paid gold or silver bullion 
and to pay for it in coin. It was also an offer to buy coins and pay 
for them in bullion, weight for weight, in fine metal. A legal ratio 
of value, namely 13% weights of silver for one of gold, was fixed 
upon between the metals. As anybody could melt his coins into 
metal and the Government was always ready to work the metal into 
coins, it followed that legally, money was now metals and metals 
were money. This piece of legislation being idiotically regarded by 
courtiers as the source of Spain s military grandeur and commercial 
prosperity, it was quickly imitated in Holland about the middle of 
the century and in England in the year 1666, by the act of 18th 
Chas. IT.; an act that so far as gold is concerned, is still in force in 
the British Empire. 


96 EQUITABLE MONEY. 


‘‘Out of this act at once sprang a new philosophy mis-called politi- 
cal economy; the whole of which, when you come to look at it 
closely, is based upon the act of 1666. It had no existence before 
that act and it will vanish whenever that act is repealed. The cor- 
ner stone of this philosophy is the theory that ‘the value of every 
object or service in demand depends upon the cost of producing or 
supplying it.’? These are the very words of Professor Rogers. So 
imagining this theory to be incontrovertible and that it applied to 
gold as well as to commercial products, he seeks to-day to show you 
how much superior the theory is to the act of Parliament which 
offered to buy 15 silver for 1 gold or 1 gold for 15 silver! This is 
strange logic. Here is a theory, in fact the mere spawn of one Act 
of Parliament, but which the economists, conceitedly imagining it 
to be their own precious offspring, have held to be superior to all 
acts of Parliament. The tenacity with which they hold to this re- 
markable conclusion, presents a rare case of paternal pride. (Great 
laughter.) 

‘‘Yet the gentleman who throws around us this theory andso many 
other theories, says he wants facts, not theories. He is a seller of 
theories and a buyer of facts. But need I remind him, in the words 
of Buckle, that a mere accumulation of facts, without knowing or 
explaining the relations between them, is the work of the pedant;, 
not that of a philosopher? The paper which he has read to us de- 
fines his position on this point even better than the card of admis- 
sion. It is not that he is averse to theories, but to other people’s 
theories; for he has given us plenty of his own. (Laughter.) 

‘*Tt is a theory that England adopted a ‘gold standard’ from 1714 
to 1759, and a ‘double standard’ from 1759 to 1774; it is a fact. 
that both gold and silver coins had been full legal tender in Eng- 
land substantially since the 13th Century and this continued down 
to 1816. 

‘‘Tt is a theory that Parliament in 1774 limited the legal tender of 
silver coins to £25. It isa fact that this provision only applied to 
worn and clipped coins, Good silver coins remained full legal ten, 
der as before. 

‘*Tt is a theory that the concurrent use of gold and silver money 
was an experiment, either ephemeral or otherwise, or that it was. 
abandoned as unworkable. It isa fact that full legal tender gold 
and silver coins have circulated side by side in nearly all countries. 
since the dawn of history and that in fact at the present moment 


‘Professor Rogers; ‘‘ Manual of Political Economy,” Chap. III. 


EQUITABLE MONEY. 97 


there is more silver coin employed as full legal tender money in 
America, than there is gold coin in England. 

‘* Tt is a new and startling theory that statistical averages are mis- 
leading. On the other hand it is a well known fact that selected 
statistics are worthless. 

‘‘Tt is a theory that the figures of Prof. Rogers present all the facts 
of the case he has brought forward. How few facts they do present 
will be shown hereafter. 

‘‘Tt is a theory that the discrepancy between some Of those figures 
and the English-mint prices of bullion proved the concurrent use of 
gold and silver coins to have been a failure. It is a fact that the 
quotations obeyed the prices of that and other Government mints 
which competed at the time for the purchase of bullion. 

‘‘Tt is a theory that the concurrent use of goldand silver coins was 
a hypothesis, or an economical generality, or that the proposals of | 
the Bi-Metallic League constitute a new departure in currency. It 
is a fact that this system of money is of the highest antiquity and 
that it has been found difficult to devise a better one. What this 
country wants, what every progressive country wants, is a system of 
money which shall conform to the requirements of equity. What is 
wanted is an Equitable Monetary Measure, a measure of value fixed 
in volume, either absolutely or relative to population, or to some 
certain other mark of growth. We neither want the limitless green- 
back of the ignorant, nor the dwindling gold currency system of the 
pedantic. What the expanding trade of this great empire demands is 
a sound and uniform money for all its domains; and nothing better 
than the concurrent use of gold and silver coins with paper ad- 
juncts, all of full legal tender, has yet been devised forit. The dis- 
location between the British and Indian currencies at the present 
time is a serious menace to British commercial prosperity. 

‘¢Tt is a theory that the use of silver money would add to business 
risks. On the contrary, it is a fact that these risks, owing to the 
fluctuations of exchange, were never greater than at present and 
were much lessso previously to 1873, down to which year the French 
and American mints were open to the purchase of all of our silver, 
at a fixed price in gold. (Applause.) 

‘¢It is very kind of the Professor not to doubt the good faith of 
those who decline to accept his theories. -He evidently regards 
their refusal as a mild form of lunacy, which is only to be cured by 
studying his own original and ‘protracted researches’ into the 
prices of bullion, with some thirty. printed pages of which he has 


98 EQUITABLE MONEY. 


just favored us. Now that he is made aware that others have pre- 
ceded him in these researches and that concerning them they came 
to entirely different conclusions, perhaps he will give his adversaries 
credit for practical sense as well as good faith, and forthwith join 
the ranks of Currency Reform. 

‘‘Tt was a theory (both of Aristophanes and Gresham) that debtors 
pay in the cheapest metal; it is also a theory that they pay in any 
metal at all. The law obliges them to pay in money; and unless the 
mint insanely choosed to turn their metal into money for nothing, 
the metal would not avail for payments at all. Thesepetty theories 
are not laws of Nature, but the by-products of old acts of legislation, 
which will disappear the moment the pruning knife of reform is ap- 
plied to the subject. 

‘‘Ttisa theory that the monetary system of England has no parallel 
for merit or that it is the product of sagacity, or that it smoothly and 
successfully conducts our trade. The facts are that its groundwork 
is the treacherous mint act of 1666 and the idiotic one of 1816; that 
it has never worked successfully; that at the present moment it de- 
presses and threatens the entire British trade with the East; that it 
has broken up many Lancashire industries; that it is cutting the 
ground under the feet of British agriculturists and working men; 
that it is driving the bullion trade to America and has seriously im- 
paired the power of the Bank of England to draw in emergencies 
upon the bullion supplies of the world; and that if not very soon 
repealed by our going back to the old system of gold and silver pay- 
ments, we will have to suspend coin payments altogether and adopt 
greenbacks formoney. 

‘¢The gentleman advances another theory, viz.: that the cost of 
producing gold and silver governs their value. Did he ever calcu- 
late this cost; did anybody else ever calculate it; is it at all calculable? 
To all of these questions my reply is a decided No; and I challenge 
a contradiction. The gentleman says in his ‘Manual of Political 
Economy ’—and these are the theories he has brought with him here 
to-day—that ‘gold and silver are produced in nearly equal quanti- 
ties by nearly equal labor, or at nearly equal cost; and that in the 
rough it may be said that the cost of producing a pound of gold is 
fifteen times as great as that of producing a pound of silver, and 
that thereforea pound of goldis worth about 15 pounds of silver!’ What 
is the gentleman’s opinion of the intelligence of this Chamber that 
he should imagine it could swallow such cheap diet as this? The 
fact is that the vast metalliferous product of Spanish America, of 


EQUITABLE MONEY. 99 


Japan, of India, of Brazil, was obtained by Europe chiefly through 
plunder and slavery. After the Spaniards and Portuguese had plun- 
dered it from the natives, the English and the Dutch plundered it 
from the Spaniards and Portuguese. Thisis what distinguished Drake, 
Morgan, Raleigh, and the other maritime adventurers of the 17th 
century. They captured the Spanish plate ships at sea, or sacked 
the mining camps and bullion depositories on the Spanish Main, and 
the product came into the markets for sale. You might as well 
calculate the cost to the burglar of producing your silver spoons 
when he breaks into your house and steals them, as try to calculate 
the cost of this bullion to Europe. (Loud laughter and applause.) 

‘*’'Though a member of this commercial Chamber, I have followed 
the business of gold mining for many years and am practically 
familiar with the conditions surrounding the production of the 
precious metals. Moreover, I have conversed with hundreds of 
intelligent mining men, who had gone into the subject very carefully, 
but I never yet met one who could tell me what was the average 
cost of producing gold or silver, nor can I imagine what it is, even 
approximately. Will the gentleman pretend to say that he can cal- 
culate it either from the statistics of former times, or the return of 
the mining companies which have been recently floated in London? 
(Great laughter, in which Prof. Rogers joined.) We have had 600 
mines brought to us from California, Nevada and Colorado, and 1,200 
from Australia, and goodness knows how many more from Mysore 
and South Africa, each costing us several hundred thousand pounds. 
Does the gentleman derive his idea of the cost of producing the 
precious metals from the experience of these companies? (Applause.) 

‘*T hope it wasn’t like that of a friend of mine, who one day showed 
me a gold button, weighing perhaps a quarter of an ounce, which he 
said had cost him £200,000. The Comstock was probably the 
richest lode ever discovered, and consisted both of gold and silver. 
It yielded the enormous sum of £60,000,000; yet it cost no less 
than £300,000,000. Both the product of California and Australia 
cost in labor alone several times as much as it fetched at the mints. 
During the days of plunder and slavery the precious metals cost 
little or nothing; at the present time they cost much more than their 
value. ‘The immense stock left from the old times depresses the 
value of the new supplies. 

‘* Tf it be asked why such an unprofitable industry is continued, why 
gold and silver mining is carried beyond the limit of prudence, the 
answer is: Because mines cannot be found at pleasure and because 


Io0o EQUITABLE MONEY. 


no man owning a mine knows when to stop, for the next stroke of 
the pick may bring him a fortune. He is buoyed up by hope; hope 
in a gambling industry, in a lottery, in a mere football of fortune; 
for such is gold and silver mining. When anybody says that he has 
calculated and knows the cost of the precious metals on hand in the 
world, I simply turn my back upon him; for I know that he has not 
done so, and he does not know what they cost. The calculation isan 
impossible one, because every ounce added to the stock on hand 
changes the value both of the old product and of the new. And 
this fact is not only a proof that such a calculation is impracticable; 
it also proves that the value of these metals depends upon their 
quantity and not upon their cost of production. 

‘*Tf the cost of production theory was sound, there could never be 
a general rise of prices; indeed, many of the economists, finding 
themselves logically forced into this stupid conclusion, have actually 
made it an article of their faith, and asserted as a fact, what was 
merely a logical deduction and one that their own observation belied. 
Adam Smith is among this number. In one place he denies the 
possibility of a rise; yet in another place he most emphatically notes 
that general rise of prices which actually followed the Plunder of 
America. Said he: ‘The discovery of the abundant mines of 
America seems to have been the sole cause of this diminution in the 
value of silver [money] in proportion to that of corn. It is accounted 
for in the same manner by everybody; and there never has been any 
dispute either about the fact or about the cause of it.’”’ 

Prof. Rogers (interrupting)—‘‘ Please repeat that.” 

Mr. Del Mar, after repeating Adam Smith’s words,” continued as 
follows: 

‘« Having thus shown the fallacy of some of Prof. Rogers’ theories, 
I now turn to some of his bullion quotations and the lessons they 
teach. I said that their extraordinary regularly indicated a govern- 
ing cause behind. I will now state what that cause was; and as this 
appears to have entirely escaped the observation of the learned Pro- 
fessor, perhaps the next time he comes up to London to teach the 
subject of money to the Chamber of Commerce, he will come better 
prepared. (Laughter.) 

‘* At the time to which he alludes, namely, 1759 to 1781, there were 


* In his ‘‘ Manual of Political Economy,” Chap. III, Prof. Rogers said that during 
one half of the 16th Century, the value of silver (money) fell more than one-half, 
which is only another way of saying that there occurred a general rise of prices—pre- 
cisely what Adam Smith said. 


EQUITABLE MONEY, IoL 


five or more governmental mints open to the purchase of silver in 
gold coins and of gold insilver coins. The prices paid for bullion by 
these mints, or the ‘ratio’ between the metals, was altered by legal 
enactments from time to time, and was rarely or never the same in 
any two of these countries simultaneously. There was sharp com- 
petition for bullion; a cutting of rates. Theratio in Spain in 1740-50 
was 14.244 silver for 1 gold; in 1775 this was changed to 15%; 
in 1779 to 15.8. The ratio in Portugal was fixed by the act of 1688 
at 16; in 1747 this was changed to 13%. The ratio in France was 
fixed by the act of 1726 at 14.46 and this lasted until 1785, when it 
was changed to 15%. In Holland the ratio was from 14% to 14%. 
In England the ratio was fixed in 1717 at 15.2 and this lasted until 
1816. The Professor says it was 15.07, but this difference between 
us is of no practical importance. Here are nine different prices 
offered for bullion and for bullion in any quantity. Confining our- 
selves strictly to the 23 years selected by the Professor, we have six 
different prices offered by the principal producing and coining nations » 
of the period. The extremes of these prices are 13% on the one 
hand and 16 on the other. In face of all this competition the Pro- 
fessor wonders why silver did notstand petrified at 15.07, which was 
mere the English mint price! He says he wants facts not theories. 
Well, here are facts. The fact is that five different nations were 
bidding for bullion at the same time; the fact is that they bid six or 
more different prices; the fact is that the lowest price for gold, viz., 
13% was bid by Portugal from the year 1747 onward; and the highest 
price, viz., 15.8 was bid by Spain from the year 1779 onward; and 
the fact is that the so-called market price in London fluctuated be- 
tween, but never moved beyond, these limits. It was like a pendu- 
lum vibrating in a clock case; yet the Professor not only wonders 
why it did not stand still, but also why it didn’t go through the case! 
These aberrations in the price of bullion may be marvels in the world 
of political economy, but I can assure the gentleman that they are 
quite explicable in that of every-day fact and of common sense.” 
(Loud applause.) 

Mr. Del Mar was followed by Mr. Hermann Schmidt and others. 





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Abd-el-Melik, 5. 

Abingdon, Revolt of, 5% 

African Co., 45. 

Akbar, the Great, 42. 

Alaska, 15. 

American Colonies, 3. 

Anglesey, Earl of, 29. 

Arabian Empire, 14. 

Aristophanes, 98. 

Bacchus, 11. 

Baghdad, Trade of, 42. 

Balancier, 20. 

eek of At oe 83, 88. mi 
arbara Villiers, 7, 21, 23, 26 

Barlow, S. L. M.. bo. Sacietit ey 

Belmont, August, 60, 74. 

Billonage and Billoneur, 20, 24. 

Billon Coins, 8, ro. 

Blondeau, Pierre, 20, 26. 

Bohemia, Mines of, 14. 

Bombay, City of, 34, 41, 46.. 

Boston Mint, 25, 33. 

Braganza, Catherine of, 34. 

Brassage, 39. 

Brazil, 15. 

Briot, Nicholas, 18, 20. 

Britain, Mines of, 14. 

Brucher, Antoine, 17. 

Buckingham, Duke of, 27, 30, 31. 

Byzantium, Money of, 12. 

Cabal Ministry, 27, 41. 

Canary Co., 45. 

Carmerthen, Marquis of, 44. 

Carthage, 12, 13. 

Castaign, 18. 

Charles II., 45. 

Chase, Chief Justice, 68. 

Child, Sir Josiah, 33, 44. 

Christianity, 14 

Civil Law, The, 8s. 

Clarendon, Lord Chanc., 45. 

Clazomone, Money of, 12. 

Cobs or Doliars, 58. 

Code Napoleon, 78. 

Coinage, Right of, 7, 34, 41, 50, 54, 8%. 

Coining Mill and Press, 18. 

Colonial Bills of Credit, 53. 

Comstock Lode, go. 

Costantinople, Pall of, 5, 14. 

Contraction of the Currency, 54, 56. 

Cooke, Sir Thomas, 43. 

Counterfeit Coins, 9. 

Country Pay, 51, 57. 

Court Bribery, 44. 

Courten, Sir William, 24. 

Cowries, 43. 

Credit Strengthening Act, 73, 80, 87. 

Crime of 1666, 96. 

Crime of 1742, 49. 

Crime of 1868, 60. 

Crime of 1870, 77. 

Crime of 1873, 86, 97. 

Cromwell, g, 20. 

Darius Hystaspes, r2. 

Debased Coins, 18, 19, 45, 58. 

Del Mar, Alex., 65, 68, 77, 92. 

DeRuyter, Admiral, 46. 

Dollar, Silver, Demonetization of, 89. 


INDEX. 


Drake, Sir Francis 25 99- 
Dunkirk, Corrupt Sale o > 45¢ 
East India Co., 8, 23, 34. 
Electrum Coins, 11. 
England, 98. 
Equitable Money, g2, 98. 
Equity Bill, 55. 
Ericthonius, 11. 
Europe, Circulation of, 17. 
Exchange, Foreign, 20. 
Exchange, Societary Nature of, 49. 
Exchequer, Robbery of the, 41, 46. 
Expansion of,the Currency, 56. 
Export of Precious Metals, 8, 23, 32e. 
Five-Twenty Bonds, 61. 
Forgery of Coins, 18. 
Frobisher, Sir Martin, 25. 
Gaul, Mines of, 14. 
Gentes Coins, 13 
Germany, Mines of, 14. 
Gold Mining, 99. 
Grant, U.S., President: 89. 
Greenbacks, 86. 
Gresham, 98. 
Gylipus, 5. 
Hamilton, Alexander, 7. 
Hawkins, Sir John, 25. ds 
Hoffman, John T., 70, 73. 
Hull’s Mint at Boston, 25, 50. 
Hungary Mines of, 13. 
Hutchinson, Gov. of Mass., 59. 
Tron, Discovery of, 11. 
Jasius and the Dactyles, 11. 
Johnson, Andrew, President, 70. 
Julius Cesar, 13. 
ee IT. /5. 
innaird, Lord, 83. 
Knox, John J., 84. 
Lakshmi Pagodas, 34. 
Land Banks, 51. 
Landsdowne, Marquis of, 83. 
Latin Monetary Union, 79. 
Laurium, Mines of, 12. 
Law, John, 54. 
Low, Robert, Chanc. of Exch., 82. 
Lycurgus, Money of, 12. 
Lydia, Coins of, 12. 
Macauley, cited, 32. 
Mahomet-bin-Tuglak, 42. 
Maia, Mother of Gods, 34. 
Marble, Manton, 60. 
Massachusetts, Colony of, 49. 
Mastrelle, Philip, 18, 19. 
Measure of Value, 16, 30, 50. 
Meltage of Coins, 28, 37. 
Miletus, staters of, 12. 
Mint, British, 36, 1oz. 
Mint Prices, ror. 
Mixt Moneys,Case of, 7. 
Monetary, Commission of 1876, 78. 
Monet Laws, Alteration of, 5, 29. si 
Money, Nature of, 40. 
Morgan, Sir John, 25,47, 99. 
Moslem Empire, 14. 
Nevers, Count of, 5. 
North, Sir Dudley, 38. 
Olivier, Aubrey, 17. 
Pagodas, gold, 34. 


Paper Moneys, 52. 


Parliament, Corruption of, 31, 32, 36, 41, 43. 


Patio process, 14. 

Pay as Money, 52. 

Pendleton, George H., 62. 
Penn, William, 26. 

Pheidon of Argos, rz. 

Philip Le Bel, 5. 

Phillipines’ Bullion Trade of, 8. 
Phip’s Expedition, 53. 
Pheenicians, 12, 13. 

Pine Tree Money, 33, 40, 49, 50. 
Placers, or alluvions, 15. 

Pliny cited, 5, 12. 

Portugal, rs. 

Portcullis coins, 9. 

Potosi Mines, 8, 14, 17. 

Private Coinage, 5, 13, 14, 19. 
Quantitative Theory, 50. 
Quinto, 14, 19, 95. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 99. 
Ramtenkis, 11. 

Ratio, 8, 9, 12, 13) 14, 15, 78, 94- 
Retinue, 309. 

Revision Commissioners, go. 
Revolution, the American, 40, 58. 
Richmond, Duchess of, 46. 
Rogers, Prof. Thorold, gz. 
Roman Mint Code, 5. 


INDEX—CONTINUED. 


Rome, Nummulary System, r2, 
Rothschild, Baron James, 62. 
Salcede, Execution of, 18. 
Schmidt, Hermann, ror. 
Scipio Africanus, 13. 
Seigniorage, 23,36, 38, 50. 
Servius Tullius, coins of, r2. 
Seymour, Horatio, 63, 87. 
Sher-shah, 42. 

Shirley, Governor of Mass., 55. 
Shrofis, Indian, 43. 

Silver, 15, 15, 16, 

Silver Drain to the Orient, 4r. 
Smith, Adam, quoted, 100. 
Spain, Mines of, r4. 

Sparta, Money of, 12. 

Special Contracts; Special Coins, 28,. 
Stability of Money, 77. 
Standard, 95. 

Star Chamber, 9g. 

Sterling, 9s. 

‘Tammany Hall, 76. 
Tarentum, Capture of, 12. 
Tavannes, Marquis of, 18, 27. 
Testoons, g. 18. 

Tilden, Samuel J., 60. 

Trevor, Sir John, 43. 
Venetians, 14. 

Vushnu, the Messiah, 34. 








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